Noted Bollywood Film Director Pawan Sharma, hailing from Mandi said “The main objective of organizing Film Festival in Mandi is to show national award winning films to people which are not generally being screened in cinemas and on OTT platform.”
Sharma, who has reached Mandi along with his team to make arrangements for the solo film festival being organized at Mandi from June 27 to 30, said, “Nearly forty to forty five national film award films would be screened for the local viewers, with an aim to show films which are not usually screened in cinema halls, on TV channels and OTT platform depriving a large number of viewers from watching these films carrying social issues and important messages.”
“ Before 2013 Doordarshan had a policy to screen award winning films on the national channel for which they used to pay Rs 25 lakh to film directors for showing it on the channel but now this policy has been scrapped and viewers find it difficult to see such films”, he added .
He said, “Another purpose of organizing the film festival is to have a broader discussion as to what should be the course and trajectory of Indian Cinema and lots of people from the film industry are coming to attend the festival to broach the issue.”
He said,” Ten famous film and television actors will also be a part of the festival which include Chandrakanta fame Krur Singh – Akhilesh Mishra, CID fame -Aditya Srivastava, main villain of Gangaajal film Yashpal Sharma, Shanti’s Nanu Jasoos Rajesh, Neeraj Sood of Mandi who left his mark in films like Amitabh Bachchan’s Agripath, Mangal and Matribhoomi, Chillar Party fame Mandi’s artist Sapna, Pihu who played the lead role in Fanney Khan with Anil Kapoor, Office-Office fame Hemant Pandey, who has acted in more than thirty Telugu films and director of Maa Saheb.