The “6th Lonavala International Film Festival India (LIFFI) 2021” will be held online from 24-26 Sept,1-3 Oct & 8-10 Oct 2021 from 6pm every day. The festival which will run over 3 weekends will pay a Special Tribute to Ace Filmmaker Shakti Samanta & will screen some of his memorable films. The Director of the Festival is Madhav Todi & the Festival Curator is Viveck Vaswani & eminent film personalities will take part in the Pre Screening discussions which will highlight the reasons why these films have become classics. These include Ashim Samanta, Sandip Soparrkar, Pooja Desai, Brahmanand Singh, Jyotin Goel, Tushar Bhatia, Divya Solgama amongst others. One film will be streamed each day and in total 9 feature films will be shown throughout the tenure of the festival. The Opening & Closing films of the festival are “An Evening in Paris” & “Pancham Unplugged”
Viewers can watch the films and participate in panel discussions from the confines of their home for free by simply downloading the PLEXIGO App from the following link: www.onelink.to/Plexigo www.onelink.to/Plexigo. More information on the films and the festival can also be obtained visiting their Website : www.liffi.in facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LIFFIIndia/ & Instagram: @liffi_india. Last Year, the 5th edition of the festival which was also held online due to pandemic had an overwhelming response & was attended & viewed by a few thousand people all over the country
The earlier 4 editions of the festival were held live every year at the scenic Triose Plaza, Ryewoods, INS Shivaji Road, Lonavala with many film personalities attending.
As part of the Tribute to Shri Shakti Samanta, the first weekend of the festival will be a Shammi Kapoor Special & his evergreen films: An Evening in Paris, Kashmir Ki Kali & China Town will be shown. The 2nd Weekend will take you through Rajesh Khanna’s romantic journey & will screen some of his gems like : Aradhana, Kati Patang & Amar Prem. The 3rd weekend will be a mix and will showcase: Barsaat Ki Ek Raat, Amanush & Pancham Unplugged. Before each film starts, there will be panel discussions on the film with the panellists
Mr. Madhav Todi, Festival Director, LIFFI, said “We did not let the pandemic break our spirit last year and conducted the festival online. The overwhelming participation strengthened our resolve and hence are conducting the festival online this year as well. We want to continue our endeavour of entertaining & edutaining the people of India with interesting films & interactive panel discussions with experts. Due to pandemic, we can’t organise a physical edition this year as well, though we have put together an interesting selection for everyone to enjoy with their family from the comfort of their homes“
The earlier 4 live editions of the festival were very successful. Several esteemed artists & film makers from the Indian film industry like Shyam Benegal, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Sudhir Mishra, Deepa Sahi, Rajit Kapoor, Mukesh Khanna, Kanwaljit Singh amongst others had graced it personally. Several media school students (including from Mumbai and Pune) and film enthusiasts have benefited by meeting film personalities and attending master classes & workshops with eminent persons such as Rinki Bhattacharya, Mayank Shekhar ,Joy Sengupta, Tushar Bhatia, Sandeep Soparkar, along with Ananth Mahadevan, & Viveck Vaswani to name a few.
The highlight of the last year’s edition was a special tribute to the veteran filmmaker N.N. Sippy by screening 9 of his best films amongst others. Mr. Ravi Gupta (Dean Whistling Woods) also graced LIFFI 2019. LIFFI 2018 paid a tribute to Shri Bimal Roy and screened several of his masterpieces
Mr. Sushil Kumar Agrawal,CEO,Ultra Media & Entertainment Group is the Patron in Chief of LIFFI 2021. The esteemed partners of the festival this year are: Triose Boutique Hotel, Ultra Media & Entertainment group , Pearl Academy School of Contemporary Media, Red FM & PLEXIGO.
