Priyanka Chopra Fan Website

As fireworks light up the sky, naval helicopters hover in the background, and colourful floats dot the streets, Goa will welcome the 37th international Film Festival of india with a glittering opening ceremony to be held on the banks of river Mandovi this evening.

“We will have veteran actor Shashi Kapoor inaugurating the event in the presence of Union information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dashmunshi while Anil Kapoor, Bengali actor Prasenjit and actress Vidya Balan will grace the occasion”, Raman Raheja, who is the event organiser for the festival said.

in its third year in Goa, the cultural extravaganza will have performances by Salman Khan, Esha Deol, Priyanka Chopra, Bipasa Basu, Riteish Deshmukh, Sohail Khan and Prabhudeva.

“We wanted to ensure that we have enough representation from all parts of the country since the focus this year is on regional cinema. That is why we will also have performaces by Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar and Southern actor Venkatesh”, he added.

The open air ceremony will be held on the banks of Mandovi river next to Kala Academy and will herald the begining of the ten-day festival which will screen more than 200 films from all over the world.

The opening film will be Pedro Almodovar’s critically acclaimed ‘Volver’, starring Penelope Cruz.

in an attempt to recreate the red carpet atmosphere at Cannes, a special jetty has been created at the venue so that the stars can make a grand entrance from a boat into the venue of the opening ceremony.

More than 5,000 delegates from all over the world are expected to attend the festival which closes on December 3.

The Chairman of the jury is Australian Director Rolf De Heer.

The festival will also have retrospectives of Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Slovakian films. This year, iFFi would also have a technical retrospective on topics such as digital editing and animation.