Daijiworld Media Network - Goa (mb)
from special correspondent

Panaji, Nov 26: Leaving this year's International film festival of India (IFFI) 2007 bereft of Bollywood,  the organizers have done away with the entire segment showcasing mainstream Indian cinema, which usually dominates Hindi movies.

Except for chief guest Shahrukh Khan and two Hindi movies, Bollywood presence is deleted from the festival, which had attracted criticism from regional filmmakers for being too much "Bollywood-centric".
 
The IFFI 2006, hosted in Goa itself, had Hindi blockbusters like Lage Raho Munnabhai, Krish and Rang De Basanti.
The directorate of film festivals, which has chalked out the programme for the ten-day-long festival, has scrapped the entire segment.

While there are no specific reasons mentioned for scrapping the segment, a DFF official on condition of anonymity stated that "non-availability of sub-titles for the films forced them to have a second look".
 
"We will try to organize the segment next year as this year we were informed about it a little too late," secretary of the film federation of India Suparn Sen said here.

Sen added that the organizers were not too keen on segregating Indian Cinema into Bollywood and non-Bollywood. Nor were they keen on tagging Bollywood cinema as mainstream.

The DFF officials, however, maintained that the films to be screened at the festival needed subtitles and very few Bollywood producers were willing to provide them.

Sen stated that the Indian mainstream cinema segment was thought about because big film-makers like Raj Kapoor and others always had a complaint that their films were never shown at a big festivals.

However, no one seems to have this grouse anymore, Sen said, justifying that maybe that is why the DFF thought of not considering this segment this year.