The 19th edition of
the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) was inaugurated on Sunday. The
eight-day festival will screen 189 films from 63 countries.
KIFF, an accredited film festival of the International
Federation of Film Producers Association, Paris (FIAPF), screened renowned
director Rituparno Ghosh’s Taak
Jhaank (Sunglass) as the inaugural film. Eight of Ghosh’s films,
including Unishe April, Dahan, The Last Lear and Chitrangada,
would be screened as a special tribute during the festival.
Golden jubilee
Bollywood actor
Amitabh Bachchan inaugurated the festival along with Shah Rukh Khan, Kamal
Haasan and other eminent actors. Bachchan recalled Bengal’s contribution to
Indian cinema and described how Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Devdas
“fired the imagination” of Indian filmmakers “time and again”.
According to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the
festival would also mark the Golden Jubilee of Bengali cinema and some
legendary Bengali films like Nagarik (directed by Ritwik Ghatak) would
be screened.
This year’s festival will focus
on South-East Asian movies, she said.
In memory of legendary singer Manna Dey, who passed away last month,
the festival’s theme song featured lyrics from his popular Bengali film Jibone
Ki Paabo Na.
Malayalam filmmaker and Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner Adoor
Gopalakrishnan’s works would also be screened.
A special segment will feature nine of his films. The film
festival would also pay special tributes to international actors and directors
including American actor Burt Lancaster (to mark his 100th birth anniversary),
Australia-born American filmmaker Billy Wilder and Japanese filmmaker Nagisa
Oshima.
Chief Minister said,
the State Government has launched a “special medi-claim scheme” for technicians
of the Tollywood film industry. 
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