goa away from new delhis blue winters and red tape when the international film festival of india iffi landed in goa for the first time in 2004 the coastal state appeared to be just the change the festival neededit was manohar parrikars pet project the former chief minister relentlessly pursued his request with former union minister s jaipal reddy and ensured that the festival had a new homeiffi would turn goa into cannes boost tourism was parrikars common refrain adding that it will be like the cannes film festival but with a goan flavour he felt iffi could expand goas presence on the world map for a different purpose as welleven the festival dates were advanced from the original november 29 to december 9 to avoid clashing with the feast of st francis xavier there was a rs 100crore investment to build infrastructure like roads under parrikars personal and roundtheclock supervisionnovember 2023 will see iffis 20th edition in goa but some filmmakers and those closely associated with the organisation of the festival in the past feel that its handling needs to be rethought along the lines of parrikars visionexcessive political and bureaucratic interference has caught up with iffis management in its journey from the capital to goa says multiple national awardwinning filmmaker adoor gopalakrishnanwhile shifting the festival to goa it was announced that iffi in goa would be made to match cannes but alas efforts have not been made to build it to international standards says adoor despite having gone through six decades of existence it cannot claim a position amongst any of the significant world festivalsadoor says that festival films and its culture are a different ball game altogether while iffi continues to be in the hands of bureaucrats who have no knowledge or commitment to the cause of cinemapresently iffi is run like an event where politicians and occasionally stars make their obligatory appearance and the opportunity is used to dole out lifetime achievement awards to leading stars who are in no way connected with festival films or its culture says the filmmakera longserving former member of the entertainment society of goa esg the state vehicle created for organisation of iffi recollects parrikars plans to eventually have an autonomous body run iffiparrikar wanted the directorate of film festivals dff to do the handholding only for the first couple of years in goa but now the esg is being fully run by politicians and political workers under digambar kamat as cm he ensured that dff set up an office in goa but today the office only exists in structure and all strings are pulled from delhi foreign delegates coming to iffi are almost as good as nil today says the memberiffi was to be a platform for the indian film industry to showcase its products and also promote goa as a tourism destinationfilmmaker bardroy barretto whose konkani film nachomia kumpasar won a national award feels efforts have not been made to develop a film culture within goa