S.P. Balasubrahmanyam to get Centenary Award at IFFI 2016

New Delhi, Nov.1: Union minister for information and broadcasting M.Venkaiah Naidu, has taken a new initiative to create a Film Promotion Fund to promote Indian cinema in the International Film Festivals. The Minister stated this while addressing the curtain raiser Press Conference for IFFI 2016. Francis D’Souza, Deputy Chief Minister of Goa, Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State for I&B, Mr. Cho Hyun, Ambassador Republic of Korea and Shri Ajay Mittal, Secretary I&B were also present on the occasion. Naidu further mentioned that the Film Promotion fund would provide financial assistance to the films which would be selected in any competition section of an International Film Festival of repute or being India’s official nomination to the Academy Awards under Foreign Film Category for promotional activities. He further said that IFFI as a platform would provide encouragement to the film makers who have contributed to the world of cinema through their creations. It would offer a bouquet of films from all over the world with diverse storylines, narratives and emotions. IFFI provides a diverse platform to the film industry to showcase their talent as well as an opportunity to learn from participating countries. Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State for I&B gave the highlights of the IFFI 2016 47th IFFI would be Republic of Koreaand would present the best of Korean Cinema to the world. He added that a total of 1032 entries were received for IFFI 2016 from across the globe, out of which 194 films from 88 countries have been selected to be screened. Highlighting the new initiative, Centenary Award for Best Debut Feature of a Director, Col. Rathore said that IFFI would recognize young talent under this new competition section. This section would showcase some of the outstanding directorial debuts of 2016 from across the world of cinema. The winner would be honoured with a Silver Peacock and a cash price of rupees ten lakhs. There would be 15 films from across the globe, including two Indian films from Indian Panorama section in the International Competition Section. Under the section ‘International Competition’, awards will be given for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor – Male, Best Actor – Female and Special Jury Award. This year, the festival line-up included 26 Asian and 108 Indian Premieres in the International Cinema section. The festival would honour award winning and acclaimed singer, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, with the Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality of the Year 2016, for his contribution to Indian Cinema. He holds the record in the Guinness Book for singing and recording more than 40,000 songs and has won the National Award six times He was honoured with the Padma Shri (2001) and Padma Bhushan (2011) by the Government of India. This year, Mr Balasubrahmanyam has completed five decades in the film industry. Inspired by the Government’s Clean India Drive, IFFI 2016 will showcase a special package of 20 award winning short films based on the Swachh Bharat theme. These 20 films were short listed from 4,346 entries and awarded at the ‘Swachh Bharat Film Festival’ organized by National Film Development Corporation on 2ndOctober in New Delhi. The 47th edition of the International Film Festival of India would commence from November 20th 2016 to November 28th, 2016. The film festival besides showcasing films from across the globe would also bring interactive sessions, workshops and informative classes from global masters of the art in Direction, Documentary film making, Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, VFX & Animation and Action Direction.Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu announced here on Tuesday. "Balasubrahmanyam will be honoured for his talent. He has been working in the film industry since past five decades and has rendered more than 40,000 songs. He is a big name in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and also in Hindi. He has a melodious voice and hard working nature. It's an award, not a reward," Naidu said. Born as Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam, the six time National Award winning singer holds the record of singing the maximum number of songs. He is also a recipient of civilian honours Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan conferred by the union government. Balasubrahmanyam, 70, has delivered many hit songs like "Om kaara nadhaanu" ("Shankarabharanam"), "Tere mere beech mein" ("Ek Duuje Ke Liye"), "Vedam Anuvanuvuna" ("Saagara Sangamam"), "Cheppaalani Undi" ("Rudraveena"), "Thanga Thamarai" ("Minsaara Kanavu"). The IFFI 2016 will take place from November 20-28.