Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) today announced that IFFI TV, an initiative with Whistling Woods International is a huge success.

A one-of-its-kind initiative for any film festival in India, IFFI TV was started this year at IFFI 2008 to be a local news bulletin and a cultural magazine. It was also to capture dialogues on various issues and build an audio-visual ambience of happenings within Inox and Kala Academy, the key venues for IFFI 2008.

Says Manoj Srivastava, CEO, ESG happily, I created IFFI-TV out of necessity. ESG has done wonderful work in the past five years but not much documentation is available. As documentation is essential part of promotion. Effective promotion is required to install confidence among sponsors and that is possible only if we have proper documentation of each and every activity at the festival. This was the very purpose of creating a dedicated IFFI-TV channel.

We can't be at all places at the same time. Our objective of being able to record happenings at IFFI and ensure that delegates do not miss out on events that they couldn't be present for has been very well received. We are really glad we could Live coverage of important events like Red Carpet and Open Forums and project them on plasmas and screens at both venues. This content will be extremely useful to ESG for future sponsorship generation and other academic purposes. This is a treasure for ESG and the people of Goa, says Nikhil Desai, GM, ESG.

He also added, We thank Whistling Wood's management to enable this. The 100-odd member team will have spent more than 10 days at the venues and multiple locations in Goa to document the event and the rich Goan culture and heritage

More than 100-members-comprising of staff, faculty and students of Whistling Woods International drove this initiative.

In-depth (and in many case exclusive) interviews were obtained from leading international film personalities like Peter Chan, Lav Diaz, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli, Jhanu Barua, John Landis, Deborah Landis, Catherine Denuve, Ramesh Sharma, A. K. Bir, Lord Meghnad Desai, Lady Kishwar Desai, Abhay Deol, Dev Anand, Basu Chatterjee, Randhir Kapoor, Subhash Ghai, Khatera Yusufi as well as many young film makers and artists.

The production team has also created some insightful critical pieces on festival films with learned critics such as Saibal Chatterjee, Prabodh Parekh, M. K. Raghavendra, P. K. Nair and Siraj Syed.

Another highlight is the multiple stories and features on life in Goa covered under Glorious Goa. As many as 20 soulful features have been shot that could help promote Goa as a tourist destination.

Typically a neglected element in film festivals - Short Films- has not been ignored at IFFI 2008 an has been documented as well. Open Forums featuring film makers discussing and debating film issues have also been captured in what can be only be described as virtual goldmine for academic research.

Umesh Gupta, Vice-President-Academics and HOD-Editing, Whistling Woods International has been leading the team from the front. He says, "We have enjoyed putting this together. The long hours that our team has put to create IFFI TV on the field and in the control room have been well worth it. Students grabbed this opportunity and have delivered professionally adhering to tough deadlines. The expertise of our faculty and staff has ensured good quality content. We look at our association with ESG beyond the coverage of IFFI and hope that this association will contribute to the growth of film culture in Goa."

About IFFI & ESG

The International Film Festival of India (IFFI) consists of a panorama of activities. IFFI also features a Film Market for films from India as well as large number of foreign countries, an Open Forum for the press & delegates to interact with film personalities, a Media Centre for the collection and dissemination of information on the festival, seminars, discussions and press conferences, and special festival publications on the films being shown.

The Festival is being organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India in collaboration with the State Government of Goa and the Indian Film Industry. The Festival is recognised by the International Federation of Film Producers' Associations (FIAPF).

The Government has formed Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) to encourage the Entertainment Industry. Some of the objectives with which the society is being formed are mentioned below. To give awards, prizes and certificates to selected films, concerts etc. in various categories like directors, producers, photographers, lyrics, musicians, acting.