After two pandemic-induced postponements, the 27th Kolkata International Film Festival will be inaugurated on April 25.
The inauguration venue has changed from Netaji Indoor Stadium to Nazrul Mancha and the festival duration has been reduced by a day. Occupation this time will be 100 per cent at all venues — 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.
“It will be almost the same package that was announced in January. Our officials had downloaded each film from the servers in hard drives,” said Goutam Ghose, chairman, film selection subcommittee. There will be 104 feature films and 59 short and documentary films from 40 countries.
Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Dinratri will be screened after the inauguration on April 25, but this time at both Rabindra Sadan and Nazrul Mancha. Shoojit Sircar will deliver the Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture on April 26 at Sisir Mancha.
All living cast and crew members of Ray are being invited for a centenary special adda and felicitation on his birth anniversary on May 1 at Rabindra Sadan at 3pm.
Centenary tribute will be paid to Chidananda Dasgupta and Miklos Jancso, alongside Ray, by screening their films. Special tributes will be paid, among others, to Dilip Kumar (through screening Sagina Mahato, Madhumati and Mughal-e-Azam), Jean-Claude Carrière (through The Mahabhatata), Jean-Paul Belmondo (through Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou) and Abhishek Chatterjee (through Tarun Majumdar’s Pathbhola).
Exhibitions will be held on Ray at the Nandan foyer and Nazrul Tirtha, and on Lata Mangeshkar, Bappi Lahiri, Dilip Kumar and Sandhya Mukhopadhyay at Gaganendra Pradarshashala. There will be displays on Dasgupta and Jancso, as also on Dasgupta, Swatilekha Sengupta and Abhishek Chatterjee on other floors of the venue.