Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, “People had said we won’t be able to organise the film festival. Last year, we had done it on a small scale in Nabanna and this year, I said we will conduct it. Several films of Satyajit Ray will be shown during the festival.”
Kolkata: The 27th Kolkata International Film Festival kicked off from Monday after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the event, dedicated to legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray as a part of his 100th birth anniversary celebrations.
Luminaries from across the Tollywood and also Bollywood shared the dais with Banerjee on Monday alongside several musicians from across genres who are slated to perform on the occasion of the international film festival.
The event began with a tribute to music composer Bappi Lahiri, who passed away on February 15, 2022. While inaugurating the event, Banerjee said, ““There will be an exhibition on Satyajit Ray with works of Lata Mangeshkar, Bappi Lahiri, Dilip Kumar, Sandhya Mukherjee, Soumitra Chatterjee, Swatilekha Sengupta, Abhishek Chatterjee and Buddhadeb Dasgupta.” Interestingly, Banerjee added that Lahiri had asked her to write songs for him.
This year, as many as 163 movies from across 42 countries will be screened at the film festival. Banerjee further said, “People had said we won’t be able to organise the film festival. Last year, we had done it on a small scale in Nabanna and this year, I said we will conduct it. Several films of Satyajit Ray will be shown during the festival.”
Addressing the crowd, recently-elected Trinamool Congress MP from Assansol Shatrughan Sinha said, “I always dreamt of working with Manik Da (Satyajit Ray) but it remained a dream. But I have learnt a lot from his films and also from the films made by Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and others.” Sinha also spoke about the Bengali movie he worked in. “I had the opportunity of working in a Bengali movie called Antarjali Jatra directed by Goutam Ghose and although I have worked in 250 films, this was my favourite,” Sinha said.
According to authorities, the film festival, which will run till May 1, will be held at Nandan, Rabindra Sadan, Sisir Mancha, Kolkata Information Centre, Rabindra Okakura Bhavan in Salt Lake, Nazrul Tirtha in New Town and Cinema Centenary Building in Tollygunge. The officials also said that all the venues will work at 100% capacity.
At Nandan premises, various art installations, dedicated mainly to Ray, have been put up and has already become a buzz among Kolkatans.
