IFFI 2025

Goa's Festival of Cinema Returns Bigger, Bolder and Closer to Home

- Gauri Ghadge

In November each year, Panjim's familiar streets transform: pavements turn into red carpets, riverfront promenades glow with light installations and conversations in dozens of languages spill out of cafés and festival shuttles. The International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is back and in 2025, its 56th edition is being pitched not just as another calendar event, but as a statement of how far Goa and Indian cinema have travelled together.

From a travelling festival launched in Mumbai in 1952 to a globally recognised, FIAPF accredited competitive festival anchored in Goa, IFFI's journey mirrors India's own cultural confidence.The 56th edition, scheduled from 20-28 November 2025, builds on this legacy with an ambitious line-up of films, ideas and industry platforms designed to make Goa the place where the global film conversation happens this winter.

FROM MUMBAI TO MIRAMAR: HOW GOA BECAME IFFI'S PERMANENT HOME

IFFI began in 1952 in Mumbai as an effort by a newly independent India to bring the world's best cinema to Indian audiences and to showcase Indian films abroad. The first edition screened around 40 features and 100 short films before travelling to Madras, Delhi and Calcutta, establishing India on the global festival circuit. Over the decades, it alternated between competitive and non-competitive formats, ran alongside the Filmotsav festival, and was hosted in several Indian cities before the two events were merged.

The decisive turning point came in 2004, when IFFI found a permanent home in Goa. A combination of policy decisions in Delhi and political will in Panjim led to the creation of a purpose-built festival infrastructure and a long-term partnership between the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and the Government of Goa through the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG).