No glam show at film fest

Ranchi: The much-awaited Jharkhand International Film Festival is all set to kick off at mega sports complex in Hotwar on Friday, minus the celebrity quotient.

On Thursday,the day before the inauguration, festival organiser Nirman Sangha was still doubtful about the presence of Bollywood personalities, including the likes of Priyanka Chopra, Mahesh Bhatt and Vidya Balan, who were supposed to attend the three-day event.

"We are still hopeful that Priyanka Chopra will attend the festival," said festival director Rishi Prakash Mishra without providing any further detail.

A WhatsApp group created by the organisers, however, confirmed the presence of few celebrities like yesteryear actor Amol Palekar and his scriptwriter wife Sandhya Gokhale, actors Yashpal Sharma and Sanjay Mishra, playback singer Shilpa Rao and Iranian model and actress Leily Velpour, among others.

"Assembly speaker Dinesh Oraon will inaugurate the festival on Friday," added Mishra.

As many as 59 prominent artists in the field of cinema, art and culture across the state will be felicitated on the occasion. Some of them are film-makers Meghnath and Anil Sikdar and singer Madhu Mansuri.

Over 65 films, including 15 international and as many regional language, will be screened across three days. These also include several feature, short and documentary films.

"Workshops on cinema and other talent hunt events will also be held," added Mishra.

On Day One, 13 feature films - six Hindi, three Bhojpuri, two Nagpuri, one Bengali and one Haryanvi - and 21 shorts and documentaries in English, Bengali, Odiya and Tamil, among other languages, will be screened at Ram Dayal Munda Kala Bhavan and State Museum in mega sports complex.

Two movies of film-maker Pawan Sharma - Brina and Karim Mohammed - will also be screened on Friday.

While Brina deals with the plight of young girls married to elderly men in a Himalayan state, Karim Mohammed, set in Kashmir, portrays the mindset of terrorists across the world.