The first edition of the the three-day Kashi Indian International Film Festival began in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi on Monday.
State tourism & culture affairs minister Neelkanth Tiwari inaugurated the festival at a grand event in the city, in the presence of Bollywood celebrities like actor Anupam Kher, filmmaker Rahul Mittra, President of Indian Film & Television Directors Association Ashoke Pandit, directors Satish Kaushik and Madhur Bhandarkar, MP & actor Ravi Kishan, comedien Raju Srivastava, Vinod Bachchan, amongst others.
While Anupam Kher and Ashoke Pandit will participate in a panel discussion on Varanasi’s rich cultural heritage, award-winning filmmaker Rahul Mittra will speak on the importance of Uttar Pradesh as a center for film production, and the potential for regional cinema on the second day of the event on Dec 28.
This would be followed by performances of singer Kailash Kher and Hema Malini among others. The Kashi Film Festival is taking place ahead of the beginning of the construction work on the ambitious film City at Sector-21 of the Yamuna Expressway Development Authority (YEIDA) area of Gautam Budh Nagar district in January 2022. The project, the construction of phase I of which will cost around Rs 65,000 crore, is likely to provide employment to 15,000 people.
