In order to shape and give a new direction to the construction of a film city in Uttar Pradesh, the first-ever edition of the Kashi Film Festival will kickstart in Varanasi from today, i.e 27th December 2021. The three-day film festival will be inaugurated by Tourism, Culture, Charitable Affairs Minister Dr Neelkanth Tiwari and Apoorva Chandra, Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The festival is being organised in collaboration with the state government. On the first day, actor Manoj Joshi, singer Kailash Kher and comedian Raju Srivastava will perform and apart from them, Bollywood personalities like Hema Malini, Anupam Kher, Rajpal Yadav, Satish Kaushik will also participate in the event.
On the second day, Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur will be the chief guest. There will be a panel discussion on the topic of Music and Geet – Virasat of Banaras earlier in the day.
On the third day, there will be a panel discussion on the topic “Uttar Pradesh as an important centre for film production and the potential of regional cinema.
The Kashi Film Festival will take place ahead of the beginning of the construction work on the ambitious film city project in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
*The Ambitious Film City project:*
In a bid to develop the third Film City of the country and the first of the state of Uttar Pradesh, the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) has initiated the global tender for the Rs 10,000-crore project, which is geared to come up at Sector 21 of Noida on a public-private partnership in a cumulative three phases. Among these three phases, the first phase of the project is expected to be ready by 2024 and the final phase by 2029.
Apart from Mumbai and Hyderabad, the proposed film city project of Uttar Pradesh along the 165km Yamuna Expressway will create an extensive and expansive hub for filmmaking and production in the state, along with giving a boost to tourism as well.
