By Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji
 
Panaji, Jun 26: The four day long film festival aiming to have peace in the troubled south asian region through movie experience began today on the bank of Mandovi river in Goa’s capital city of Panaji.
 
The fourth edition of South Asian Film Festival (SAFF) was inaugurated today by Goa Chief Minister Digamber Kamat in presence of union minister of state for water resources Vincent Palla, Speaker of state legislative assembly Pratapsingh Rane, South Asia Foundation’s secretary general Rahul Barua and other dignitaries from film and political field.
 
The event is organized by South Asia foundation in collaboration with Goa government.
 
The festival will showcase 60 films from eight south asian countries. The special bouquet of 12 films from Iran, who have lot of semblance with South Asia also makes for the itinery of the festival that will be held at three different locations in state’s Panaji and Margao towns.
 
“We want to promote Goa as a destination for film festivals by encouraging various organizations including private players to organise the festivals here,” Kamat said after inaugurating the event.
 
The chief minister said that the state intends to tap the popularity of the festivals here so that the younger generation can venture into entertainment industry as their profession.
 
Gelling well with the theme of the festival `dissolving the boundries,’ filmstar Kunal Khemu, whose movies are the part of the festival’s mainstream section, said that the festival is the best way to understand cinema from across the boundry.
 
“Cricket and Movies have become our religion and in this context, such an interchange is very much important,” he said.
 
 The festival which began from today has the films from the countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Afghanistan screening in it.
 
The introductory movie of the festival was Maldives’ highest box office collector `Yousuf’, which had its international premier through this festival.
 
The film personalities from the south asian movie galaxy including Mohit Suri, Rajat kapoor, Anirban Dhar, Kunal Khemu, Pankaj Parasar, Adhyayan Suman, Shahanas Goswami, Anjanams Sukhani, Gulammr Fareed, Atiqumr Abdul, Uvesmr Akram, sarib sabri, Manisha Koirala, and others will participate in the festival