From correspondents in India, 04:00 PM IST

It is important to protect the regional cinema in India, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said at the inaugural ceremony of the International Film Festival of India's (IFFI) Indian Panaroma section Saturday.

'We just focus on Bollywood films, but it is important to give importance to the regional cinema to protect the regional identity of Indian cinema. The International Film Festival of India provides an ideal platform to showcase such creative regional inputs. This year the Indian Panorama represents diverse cinematic culture of the county,' said Dasmunsi.

Malayalam movie 'Ore Kadal' by Shyamaprasad opened the Indian Panorama feature film section, while the non-feature section began with the screening of Bishnu Dev Halder's Bengali film 'Bagher Bacha'.

'The first film I saw was 'Ajankrit'. Unfortunately, its prints were destroyed,' said Dasmunsi.

The focus of the feature film section is on regional cinema this year. So only two Hindi films, 'Gafla' and 'Dharm', will be showcased in the section. Five Malayalam movies, four Marathi films, three Kannada and Bengali movies, two Tamil films and one each in Assamese and Manipuri will be screened.

Dasmunsi had a busy morning on the first day of the 38th edition of the festival. Apart from inaugurating the Indian Panorama section, he attended a seminar on 'Digital Entertainment: Animation, Gaming and Visual Effects' and also opened an exhibition titled 'Behind the Frames'.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)