This year's edition of the InternationalFilm Festival of India (IFFI), to be held in Goafrom Nov 24 - Dec 4, will pay a special tribute to Indian-born filmmaker IsmailMerchant who died in May this year.

The retrospective will screenIn Custody, which Merchant directedhimself, and three films that he produced with James Ivory as director - A Room With A View, Heat And Dust and Remains OfThe Day.

Fifty films from 35countries will play in the "Cinema of the World" section of the 10-day festivalwhich has found a permanent home in the coastal state of Goaafter moving there last year.

The festival will alsoshowcase 21 features and 15 non-features in the "Indian Panorama". Films inthis section include Nagesh Kukunoor's Hindi-language Iqbal; Kamal's Malayalam drama Perumazhakkalam;Aparna Sen's English-langauge 15 ParkAvenue, and Anjan Das' Bengali-language Faltu.

Tributes will also be paidto two other Indian film figures who passed away thisyear - actor, producer, director and politician Sunil Dutt and southern Indianfilm legend Gemini Ganesh. Foreign retrospectives will include the films ofFrench actress Isabelle Huppert and selections from Iran and Germany.

The festival also features acompetition section for which titles have yet to be announced. Chileanfilmmaker Miguel Littin heads the five-member jury which also includes Frenchdirector Alain Corneau, Indian filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Iranian actorFaramarz Gharibian and Austrian director Sabine Derflinger.

Shadows Of Time, a Bengali-language film from German director Florian Gallenberger,will close the event. Gallenberger was a jury member at last year's IFFI.

This year's IFFI will alsofeature a conference - "India - The Big Picture" - on the role of theentertainment sector in India's globalisation effort. Speakers include local starsAamir Khan and Kamal Haasan along with director Shekhar Kapur.