MUMBAI: The India @ 60 Section at the IFFI-2007 started with the screening of the 1965 movie Shaheed directed by S. Ram Sharma.

This section celebrates 60 years of India’s independence and includes three prominent feature films and four documentaries. The films are, Nam Iruvar (Tamil), a film by A V Meiyappan, Biyallis (Bengali), by Hemen Gupta apart from Shaheed, a film version of revolutionary Bhagat Singh’s story.

The documentaries to be screened are Films Division productions, namely, Then Came Gandhi and India Wins Freedom both by N S Thapa, Call for Swaraj and Swadeshi by Prem Vaidya and Gandhi – An Emerging Reality by D. Gautaman.

The opening film of the section Shaheed starring Manoj Kumar in the title role, shows how Bhagat Singh grew up in a revolutionary household and depicts his tryst with the colonial empire of the British in India. The film shows the revolutionary activities undertaken by Bhagat Singh along with other freedom fighters such as Rajguru and Sukhdev before being hanged by the British on March 23, 1923.