India's huge movie piracy business, estimated to cost the legitimate film industry heavily, has cast its shadow on the 36th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) here.

"Foreign movie makers are very sensitive (to) piracy and are therefore extremely reluctant to send prints of their films to India for the festival," a senior official of the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) told.

Entries from Africa and Latin America have given the 36th edition of IFFI, which kicked off Thursday, a wider international canvas in the competitive section, considered the popularity barometer of film festivals. Even so, this section has just 14 films, including two from India.

The competition at the festival, for the past few years, had been confined to Asian films only.

A majority of the dozen odd foreign filmmakers whose films have been entered have managed to extract safekeeping guarantees from Goa's security agencies.

"We have assured them (foreign directors) that we will provide watch-and-guard security for their original movie prints," Goa's Deputy Inspector General of Police Ujwal Mishra told.

"The foreign directors aren't entirely unjustified," Mishra said, admitting that the police and other law-enforcing agencies in India were indeed lax on tackling piracy.

Apparently, foreign filmmakers have also got IFFI organisers to guarantee that cameras and other gadgets that could record screenings of their films are banned at theatres during the festival.

"It is a commitment we have made to them and I can't go back on it," festival director Afzal Amanullah told journalists, particularly those from the visual media who vociferously protested the rule disallowing them from taking their cameras to the theatres.

Amanullah, a joint secretary in the ministry of information and broadcasting, however, made a minor allowance and agreed to allow television camera crews to record clips of the opening for two minutes of all screenings at the festival.