Bollywood was at its worst once again when four of the songs from the album of the upcoming Sanjay Gupta film, "Zinda", were belted out with misplaced gusto in the course of the otherwise low-key closing ceremony.

Cinema took a backseat as Shibani Kashyap rendered one of the numbers, while Bilal and Faisal of the Pakistani band Strings sang yet another.

If that were not enough, following the music launch of the film, Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, who had inexplicably skipped IFFI's Homage to Sunil Dutt section a couple of days earlier, was given access to the festival's media premises to address a full-fledged press conference.

While most serious film critics chose to skip the press meet, they could not help wondering what White Feather Films, the film production company jointly promoted by actor Sanjay Dutt and director Sanjay Gupta, had done to deserve the singular honour.

Strangely, their last film "Musafir" had also premiered at IFFI when it was held the first time around in Goa in 2004.

The worry in certain quarters that IFFI might be degenerating into a Page 3-driven event thanks to Goa's proximity to Bollywood is clearly being fanned even further by such efforts to push kitsch in the name of cinema.

When the organisers of a film festival hire an event management company that understands nothing beyond the language of glamour and glitz, can you expect any better?

The mess becomes infinitely worse when the company is reduced to scraping the bottom of the barrel in its effort to liven up the proceedings. That only ends up giving everybody a bad name - and cinema buffs unnecessary bouts of bad headaches.