MACAO HOSTS IT 1ST INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL & AWARDS

Mumbai: Macao Government Tourism Office gladly announces its 1st International Film Festival & Awards?Macao (IFFAM). The festival would entail the twelve Asian genre film directors and their chosen genre favourites for the Crossfire section of the official programme. Crossfire is a non-competitive section introducing the festival audience to influential genre titles from Europe and South Asia.

The 1st International Film Festival & Awards would be held in Macao from Thursday 8 December – Tuesday 13 December 2016. Amongst glitz and glamour, Macao will witness industry world over coming together to celebrate the film festival. The acclaimed director SHEKHAR KAPUR will serve as Jury President at the inaugural festival.

Kapur will preside over the Jury of other film professionals; together bestowing awards on the competition strand of 10 to 12 new international films. He adds IFFAM Jury President to a list of jury positions at prestigious festivals including the 63rd Cannes Film Festival, the London Film Festival, and the Tokyo International Film Festival, as well as a sponsor role with the International Indian Film Festival in Goa.

On the announcement of his appointment, Kapur comments, “This is Asia’s time. Over the past few years, consumerism has catapulted the Asian market into international renown, but what we are now experiencing is the renaissance of culture as inspired by the Asian communities. As an Indian director, I’m excited to be chairing the Macau Film Festival as Indian storytelling has so much in common with Chinese forms of storytelling. Hopefully these new forms of storytelling will bring the world to a better understanding of itself.”

With these awards the film and television industry creates a strong momentum for local tourism development and effectively builds up a destination’s colorful image. Not only that, the industry also fosters tourism growths and raises the destination profile. Hosting an international film festival, Macao hopes that the event gather film works across the globe as well as prominent actors and film stars from around the world, thus bringing in world-class exchange opportunities and unleashing a synergistic effect through advancing local cultural and creative industry development and Macao’s destination glamour.

Through the film festival, the SAR Government also aims to broaden the diversity of tourism and cultural products as well as signature events, enriching the cultural elements offered by the destination, in order to produce long-term benefit for the sustainable development of the tourism industry and the creative and cultural industry, which will promote Macao’s endeavor to become a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure.

IFFAM is organised by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) and Macau Film & Television Productions and Culture Association (MFTPA), co-organised with Cultural Affairs Bureau (Macao), Civil & Municipal Affairs Bureau (Macao), supported by Macao Foundation, with the Galaxy Entertainment Group, Sands China Limited, Wynn Macau Limited, MGM as Premium sponsors, and THE 13 as Diamond sponsor.