IFFI Goa 2015, Festival Diary, VIII: Did the best ones win? Without any doubt, my favourite for Best Picture was Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia) directed by Ciro Guerra. The Jury, too, found the black and white film about the Amazon, its rape by greedy foreigners and the destruction of the mythical but pristine lives of its native inhabitants “mind-blowing”, which is reason for feeling vindicated. This is the eighth or ninth time, out of eleven IFFIs at Goa, that my pick for the...

IFFI Goa 2015, Festival Diary, IV IFFI Goa 2015, Festival Diary, IV At IFFI, the grand prizes are called the Golden Peacock and Silver Peacock, although India’s national bird is far from either golden or silver in colour, and the décor at the venue this year is derived from various shades of blue, including violet and purple. A total of 15 films have been short-listed in the International Competition Section, two of them India, both from the Eastern state of West Bengal....