The 53rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) was held between 20^th to 28^th November in Panjim, Goa. The festival is committed to showcasing the best of world cinema and providing a platform to filmmakers and audiences alike. It is the biggest film festival in India, which is held annually in Goa with the intention of understanding and appreciating the global cultural ethos represented through films along with their social interaction and building cooperation and friendships at a global level.

The department conducted an online Film Poster Design Contest as a tribute to the legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The theme of the contest was 'The One and Only Ray.' Out of 635 entries, the jury, which included renowned artists from the fields of art, film, and painting, selected the 75 best film posters. Shyam Benegal, Anjolie Ela Menon, Dhimant Vyas, Radha Binod Sharma, Prakash Bal Joshi & Shukla Sawant were the renowned Jury members. The entire procedure, including the jury's evaluation, took place online. Each jury panelist received a unique login and password, and the following scoring criteria were considered to adjudicated the winners – creativity and originality, relevance to the theme, visual contest and the visual impact.

The top three winners received monetary prizes, the winners were awarded with ₹ 1,00,000/- ,the First & Second Runner up with ₹ 75,000 & ₹ 50,000 respectively, as well as a souvenir created from these three winning film poster designs, were presented to dignitaries & eminent personalities attending 53rd IFFI. Each jury panelist received a unique login and password, and the following scoring criteria were considered to adjudicated the winners – creativity and originality, relevance to the theme, visual contest and the visual impact.

Moreover, the department handled the "Gala Premieres and Special Screenings" a new segment of the festival, which intended to bring mainstream film stars to the public and to celebrate international festival with representing their films keeping the spirit of the film festival intact. The titles included as mentioned below –

Many well-known actors, such as Paresh Rawal, Ajay Devgn, Shriya Saran, Yami Gautam, Ashika Ranganath, Varun Dhawan, Suniel Shetty, Randeep Hooda, Illeana D'Cruz, SJ Suryah, Sai Tamhankar, Kalki Koechlin, Deepti Naval, Pankal Kapur, Supriya Pathak Shah, Rajit Kapur, Karan Kundra, Adil Husain, Tannistha Chatterjee, Adivi Sesh, Raj Kumarr Rao, and others, participated in the 53rd International Film Festival of India.

The highlight of the segment was the presence of Avi Issacharoff & Lior Raz, the Fauda (Netflix) stars. These actors were all featured in the prestigious Indian Panorama, Special Screenings & Gala Premieres sections. Each and every actor thought this was the ideal & perfect platform for showcasing their films or trailers and for entertaining the audiences.

A collection of films presented in collaboration with UNICEF, IFFI’s Cause Partner that reflected on the dynamic forces which shape childhood and its socio-economic contexts, Hence sent the CFSI’s Nagamese Children’s film Nani Teri Mornifor screening and as IFFI believes in making cinema an inclusive and accessible avenue for everyone. It took up the initiative of organizing dedicated screenings for specially-abled people keeping in mind their accessibility needs. The films in this section were audio-visual-equipped, with embedded audio descriptions and subtitles. The section featured two films; NFDC’s Co-Production Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough and The Storyteller directed by Ananth Narayan Mahadevan, which is also one of the film at Gala Premieres & Special Screening section.

Additionally, the 75 Creative Minds Of Tomorrow (CMOT) programme was implemented. As part of the first-ever outreach effort by NFDC, the winning film of the 53-hour filmmaking challenge, which was a component of the CMOT, was screened in front of a huge audience of approx. 2 Crore school childrenbetween the ages of 8 and 12 across 22,000 schools of India.