IFFI 2024, 15: Accreditation for media-persons, and what they should expect if and when it is granted
Setting-up and Opening MyIFFI (your account at the website), you can register on a form for getting accreditation as a media-person, to attend the International Film Festival of India, which is held regularly in Panaji, Goa (since 2004). If you fill the form correctly, meeting their expectations, some of which are very demanding, you will get a response that your application is registered. This does not grant you accreditation. If you fit their criteria, which they will take a week or two to assess, you could expect another email, saying that you have been accredited. Not every media-person is granted accreditation to IFFI. The categories of accreditation cover film journalists, employees of media organisations, freelancers, photographers, videographers, All India Radio, correspondents, private radio channel correspondents, Doordarshan correspondents, employees of TV channels, and social media-persons.
All are given cards that they have to hang on their necks, to access to their status/area of interest-related events. They are also given a brochure, and a shoulder bag, which has been a C class product in 2024 and earlier festivals too, liable to tear and break at the metal points. Besides getting access to their areas of operation, media-persons can avail of free tea and coffee, from a dispenser, and some biscuits, if they are lucky enough to reach the person operating the dispenser at the time(s) when he has stock of biscuits, which are kept in a small plastic box. Many medical practitioners advise their patients, and the general public, not to drink tea or coffee if they do not have something light go with it, like biscuits, to avoid acidity, but media-persons who are unlucky, get only the beverage, not the biscuits. It is a 'come at a time when the person manning the vending machine opens a packet(s) and queue-up to get first come first served service.'
But that isn’t a constant. You could be given sandwiches, pastry and other savouries, if a different government was in power when the festival under question is held in the coastal state of Goa, or at the Centre, in New Delhi. Not only that, you could be invited to free ferry cruises, cocktails and dinners, breakfast press meets and lunch get-togethers, if you were in luck. That luck has run out a few years ago. For the last few years, either none of what is listed above is happening, or media is being carefully kept away from such events, and media is expected to keep mum since it is given free accreditation, and normal delegates (not invitees), have to pay to register. So, stripping it down to a bare minimum, you could expect only tea, coffee and ‘lucky’ biscuits. The biscuits are of the cheapest variety available, and many do not like to eat them. Perhaps that is why they are chosen, to minimise the biscuits’ bill. That is how it was at IFFI 2024 too.
In return for these favours, the media is expected tom extoll the virtues of the 9-day fest, for, otherwise, they may be denied accreditation the following year. Even at rock bottom, there have to be four cocktail/dinner parties during IFFI: the opening night, usually thrown by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, one thrown by the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), one by the Press Information Bureau PIB), which is the nodal authorities in managing all media-related affairs of the Government in power), and the closing dinner, the sponsor of which may vary, and includes the Chief Minister of Goa. At best, the press is invited to the PIB gig only. At all other events, the Press, barring a few exalted, members, is boycotted. The Press is also invited to the inaugural and closing ceremonies, which may very well begin about one hour later than the scheduled time, and end several hours later. No arrangements are made to carr