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  • 20th Kolkata International Film Festival begins

    20th Kolkata International Film Festival begins

    KOLKATA: The 20th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), which opened on 10 November, saw the heavyweights of Bollywood and Hollywood attending it.

     

    The eight-day extravaganza saw Amitabh Bachchan and his celebrated family, superstar Shah Rukh Khan, the state’s brand ambassador and a host of film personalities at the Netaji Indoor Stadium at Central Kolkata.

     

    The inaugural ceremony will be presided by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee along with the Bachchan clan, SRK, Deepika Padukone, Tanuja and Irrfan Khan.

     

    Boasting of a rich oeuvre of around 137 films from 60 countries, the fest will see 40 international delegates and 15 segments. There will be 31 Indian films, including 13 Bengali films.

     

    For the first time, the fest will see 15 films by women directors from across the globe, competing for the top jury award, the Golden Royal Bengal Tiger trophy in the Women Directors segment.

     

    Headed by award-winning Australian filmmaker Paul Cox, the jury will comprise Iranian director Nikki Karimi and Indian filmmaker Amol Palekar and others.

     

    It should be noted that this year there is no private sponsorship.

     

    The focus will be on cinema from Arab nations too and a special section has been earmarked as a tribute to legendary Bengali actress Suchitra Sen, who died on January 17 this year in Kolkata. Seven of her films will be screened as part of this.

    Hollywood classics such as Guns of Navarone, The Sound of Music and Jighangsa by Ajoy Kar will be screened in the ‘Centenary Tribute’ section.

     

    The Satyajit Ray Memorial lecture will be delivered by director Govind Nihalani and the screening locations will be spread across 12 venues.

     

    Other highlights include ‘Children Screening’ section and ‘French Classics’ segments, apart from contemporary world films of 2013 and 2014.

     

    The inaugural film selected is the Italian movie Italo Barocco by Alessia Scarso.

     

  • Kolkata govt. promotes film fest with outdoor campaigns

    Kolkata govt. promotes film fest with outdoor campaigns

    KOLKATA: “Ticket kete na ki pass niye” (Did you buy a ticket or do you have a pass?) – this is what the Kolkata government has been asking its residents.

    The state government’s Information and Cultural Affairs (I&CA) department has been running an outdoor campaign to spread awareness about its 19th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) that opened on Sunday.

    The department owns close to120 hoarding space in the city and has used almost one-third of the space for the promotion of KIFF.

    Government enlisted agencies including Arun Sign Service, Karukrit Advertising and Pioneer Publicity Corporation have been asked to maintain the hoardings for KIFF.

    “The teaser campaign has been out for some time now. It is just to spread the right word among the people about the festival,” said West Bengal Outdoor Advertising Association, treasurer and grievance committee convener, Ashif Kumar Biswas.

    While S Chakraborty from Karukrit Advertising said that the government has given two billboards to each agency in one area where one advertisement would be there to promote the festival and the other one will be used for commercial advertisement so that the agencies can recover the cost of the government hoarding. “We have got 20 by 10 feet flex from the authorities,” he said.

    When asked about the money being spent in the advertisements, the agencies said that since these billboards are owned by the department, the cost is not much.

    City based media analysts think that the teaser, which is usually a common aspect of such festivals, increases curiosity among film lovers.

    Apart from promoting the festival with outdoor campaigns, the state government has also made special efforts to pay tribute to legendary singer Manna Dey, who passed away recently and filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh, who too passed away earlier this year. While the singer’s famous songs are a part of the official theme song, the filmmaker’s unreleased movie Taak Jhaank (Sunglass) will be premiered at the festival.

  • KIFF opens amid glitz and glamour

    KIFF opens amid glitz and glamour

    KOLKATA: The 19th Kolkata International Film Festival kicked off with a bang on Sunday with actors including Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Mithun Chakraborty and Kamal Haasan gracing the show. The eight-day festival that paid tribute to 100-years of Indian cinema was inaugurated by the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Netaji Indoor Stadium, who also announced that from its next edition, it will be a competitive affair.

     

    Other distinguished guests like filmmaker Sandip Ray, Bengali film actress Sabitri Chatterjee and Supriya Devi, Dipankar Dey and music director Dwijen Mukherjee, also participated in the lamp lighting ceremony that concluded with Big B releasing the fest’s brochure.

     

    Actors of the regional film industry Dev and Koel Mallick felicitated Big B with an uttariya (scarf) and a metal-cast memento. The other luminaries were welcomed subsequently in a similar manner.

     

    Over the next eight days, the festival will feature 189 films from 63 countries at 13 venues including Nandan-Rabindra Sadan complex, Inox City Centre 1 and Star Theatre. The festival will witness an estimated 3,000 delegates and 24 international guests. Noted Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai is also likely to attend the film festival and also conduct a workshop for film students.

     

    Others who are expected at the event include Bollywood actor Sharmila Tagore, director Madhur Bhandarkar and Shoojit Sarkar, National Award-winning Malayali filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, among others. Actors Sushmita Sen, Konkona Sen Sharma, Moushumi Chatterjee, Bipasha Basu and Rani Mukherjee will attend the closing ceremony on 17 November.

     

    “The film screening is going to be an enriching experience for cinema connoisseurs,” said experts present at the event.

     

    Shah Rukh Khan, who is also the brand ambassador of West Bengal, hopes that platforms like the KIFF will take Indian films to greater heights. “Creative interactions of this scale will help Indian films reach new heights, something that great filmmakers present tonight, and those who have passed away, like the wonderful Rituparno, dreamt for Indian cinema,” said Khan.

     

    Thousands of film lovers swarmed the venue to attend the glittering ceremony and get a glimpse of their favourite stars present at the event. They were mesmerised by the speech of the actors, especially Bachchan, who interspersed his speech with Bengali words and renditions of Bengali poems.

  • Kolkata Film festival to open with late Ghosh’s unreleased movie

    Kolkata Film festival to open with late Ghosh’s unreleased movie

    KOLKATA: The 19th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) will open with the screening of an unreleased film of the iconic Rituparno Ghosh, amid the presence of a galaxy of stars including the legendary Amitabh Bachchan.

     

    “Ritu da is no more with us. But he continues to live with his immortal creations. His unreleased film Taak Jhaank (Sunglass) will be screened for the first time in the inaugural ceremony of the 19th Kolkata International Film Festival on that day,” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said.

     

    Ghosh’s satire Taak Jhaank brings together the two veterans of Bollywood – Jaya Bachchan and Naseeruddin Shah for the very first time. Ghosh died 30 May following a heart attack.

     

    The film festival to be inaugurated by Amitabh Bachchan on 10 November would be graced by a number of luminaries including megastar Shah Rukh Khan – also the state’s brand ambassador as well and versatile actor Kamal Hassan.

     

    Incidentally, the opening day of the fest will coincide with the international Test Match between India and West Indies at the Eden Gardens where batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar will be appearing for the last time before he hangs up his boots after playing the next – his 200th in Mumbai.

     

    Kolkata will be honoured to have a very eventful day on 10 November. The cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar will be playing the last day of his 199th Test match at the Eden Gardens on that day. Kolkata’s showpiece event, the KIFF will also be held on that day in the august presence of iconic Amitabh ji, Shah Rukh and Kamal Hassan. We are so lucky to have the presence of all those luminaries on a single day at Kolkata,” added Banerjee.