That last assumes significance in Goa. Rows of booths at the INOX complex, the festival’s main venue, are happy to sell you a glass of red wine, or a pint of beer. If you want, you can get can gently sloshed by the end of the day. Legally. And productively.

Equally importantly, there were far few organisational snafus. A ticketing system (borrowed from film festivals abroad), which required all delegates and mediapersons to block their seats in advance, was experimented with. And on the whole, despite a few glitches, it worked. The serpentine queues and being turned away after long, fractious hours of standing in line, are a thing of the past.

Some of the films were outstanding. The opening film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a somber, stunning document on the difficulties of getting an abortion in Communist Romania, was a coup. So was the South African Tsotsi, about a feral hood who turns away from casual violence after a baby enters his life. From China came The Postmodern Life Of My Aunt, a marvellous look at what it is like to be a 60-something woman in present-day Shanghai. Thailand’s Me Myself was a darkly funny love story. And from Pakistan, the long but very brave Khuda Ke Liye, about the contemporary, frightening face of fundamentalism and prejudice, was a highlight.

The ‘Panorama’ section, which screens the best of Indian cinema, was held to be better this year than in the past few. And by far the best of the lot was Adoor Gopalakrishan’s superb Naalu Pennugal (Four Women). As well as debut director Samir Chanda’s disturbing but moving tale of a father and daughter, Ek Nadir Galpo (The Tale Of A River).

... contd.