Govt inducted new category of award for “Most Film Friendly State/UT”

To promote the Indian film industry and India’s “Soft Power”, Govt has instituted a new award category under the National Film Awards titled “The Most Film Friendly State/UT”.

• This award will be conferred for the first time at the 63rd National Film Awards to be held on 3rd May 2016 by President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee.
• The announcement in this regard has been made by Sunil Arora (Secretary I&B) during the inaugural function for the Public screening of Indian Panorama-2015 films at Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi.
• The 12-day fest will showcase 47 popular movies, which were selected in the Indian Panorama section at the 46^th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2015.

Other Announcements
Film Facilitation Office – To create a film friendly environment in the country, it has also been decided to establish a Film Facilitation Office at the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) premises in Mumbai under the supervision of the Ministry of I&B.

• The objective of setting up the office was to provide single window clearance to film makers and promote India as a Filming Destination.

Indian Panorama 2015
Indian Panorama section this year, received a record number of 384 entries. Out of the large number of entries, 26 feature films and 21 non-feature films were selected by the Jury.

• The package of Indian Panorama includes films in Bengali, Bodo, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Tamil, Wancho and Marathi.
• “Daughters of Mother India” directed by Vibha Bakshi and Bengali feature film “Cinemawala” directed by Kaushik Ganguly were the opening films at the inaugural function.