NEW DELHI: Manoj Srivastava, who until recently was deputy director in the Directorate of Film Festivals, has taken over as the chief executive officer of the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG).

ESG is a state government body that has been set up to coordinate with the centre for the organisation of the International film festivals of India.

He succeeds Nandini Paliwal, an Indian administrative service officer from the Union Territory cadre, who was posted to the north east after the conclusion of IFFI 2007 in December 2007. The post had been vacant for more than four months.


A professional filmmaker, trained at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Srivastava worked with Doordarshan as a producer for 15 years before joining the Directorate eight years ago.

As a filmmaker, his film Hum Panchhi Ek Dal Ke participated in Cannes Film Festival this year. It is being screened next week in Kabul in a special exposition and has also been selected for the Brisbane International Film festival early next month. His next film project is the Journey Of The Brahmputra, which he plans to shoot in China, India and Bangladesh.

As a producer with Doordarshan, he handled shows like Zubin Mehta concerts, and live telecasts from Parliament, apart from high profile programmes like The Big Question with Karan Thapar. He directed 26 episodes of the programme, apart from shows like Mirror of the World. He also covered the Kargil war with DD News.

As a film critic, he has written on cinema and television for publications and websites, which includes editing of two Indian Panorama and two National Film Award books. His book on the history of Indian Cinema titled ‘Wide Angle’ is being published soon by Penguin India, and a novel ‘Evil Within’ is ready for publishing.