UNION Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur on Sunday said the Government aims to establish the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) as the one-stop destination for content creation, filmmaking and shooting. The 53rd edition of the nine-day festival is set to kickstart here with film personalities including Ajay Devgn, Kartik Aaryan, Pankaj Tripathi, Manoj Bajpayee, Suniel Shetty, Varun Dhawan, and Sara Ali Khan in attendance at the opening ceremony. The festival runs till November 28.

“The IFFI is Asia’s largest film festival and we are in the 53rd edition... We want to establish this as a platform where eminent filmmakers, directors, and artists of the country and the world get an opportunity to showcase their films. We want to make India a global content hub, be it for content creation, co-production, filmmaking or shooting,” Thakur said.

In the 75th year of India’s independence through the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav initiative, the Union minister said the focus is not only on celebrating excellence in cinema but also creating a collaborative ecosystem for the Indian film industry to go global through its Film Bazaar (market). The film market, which will be organised for five days, aims at discovering, supporting and showcasing South Asian content and talent in filmmaking, production and distribution for collaborations with international film fraternity.