The 53rd edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) on Sunday honoured Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi with the Indian Film Personality of the Year Award.
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur made the announcement at the IFFI opening ceremony here.
In his film career spanning more than four decades, Chiranjeevi has starred in more than 150 feature films in Telugu, as well as some in Hindi, Tamil and Kannada. The 67-year-old was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 2006 and served as union tourism minister between 2012 and 2014.
Others who were felicitated with special honours at the event included actors Ajay Devgn, Paresh Rawal, Suneil Shetty, Manoj Bajpayee and writer and Rajya Sabha MP V Vijayendra Prasad.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the event, Anurag Thakur said, “We want to turn India into a hub for film production, content creation and post-production. Several new initiatives at IFFI are aimed towards that.”
“Every village in India has a story and the whole world wants to see such stories,” he added.
India is an economical destination for film shoots and post production. “It can be a big source of revenue and job creation. Technology can be the gamechanger for India,” Thakur added.
Goa Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, and MoS for I&B L Murugan were present.
The 53rd IFFI is the first full-fledged physical edition of the festival following the COVID-19 pandemic. The last two editions were held in hybrid format. Total 280 films from 79 countries will be screened at the IFFI. The festival runs till November 28.
(The writer is attending the event at the invitation of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting)
