The 30th edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) was flagged off at a new venue on Wednesday afternoon.

Instead of the usual Netaji Indoor Stadium, with a 15,000 capacity, the film festival was declared open at the Dhana Dhanyo auditorium in Alipore which seats 2,000-plus.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee commented on the change in her address. “We are doing it at a small place. One has to experience different places,” she said.

Another change was the absence for the second year in a row of Amitabh Bachchan, a fairly regular presence at the film festival ever since Mamata took over. The 82-year-old icon found mention in the chief minister’s speech.

“Amitabhji is not well. Last time I went to Bombay, I visited him at his residence.
He told me all this. I am worried about his health. He is not here but you are,” she said, turning to chief guest Shatrughan Sinha, Bachchan’s co-star in blockbusters like Dostana, Shaan and Kaala Patthar.

Sinha, popularly known as Bihari Babu, is now the Trinamool MP from Asansol.
There was no mention of the most notable Bollywood absence, Shah Rukh Khan, the co-owner of the city’s IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders.

Seated next to Mamata at the KIFF opening was the former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly, who was referred to by the chief minister as Bengal’s brand ambassador. His wife, the Odissi dancer Dona Ganguly, and her troupe presented a colourful item showcasing the diversity of India, that had a global touch through the participation of a couple of expatriates from Russia and Japan who came dressed in sarafan and kokoshnik, and in a kimono respectively.

If the festival’s founder-chairman Goutam Ghose was back at the helm in the 30th edition, Pablo Justino Cesar, an Argentinian film director-producer-teacher, who is also on the festival jury this year, had attended the inaugural edition in 1994.

A special guest at Wednesday’s opening, the maker of films like Equinox and Unicorn spoke of India and Argentina starting their journey in cinema the same year in 1896, a year after the Lumiere brothers presented a recording of their moving image to the world.

“They travelled to India to show their visual revolution which inspired several Indians, including Hiralal Sen and his brother Motilal, who founded the Royal Bioscope Company (India’s first movie production company) in 1898,” he said in his speech.

The Hiralal Sen Memorial award is given at KIFF for films in the Indian language section.

The inauguration was attended by veteran actors Madhabi Mukherjee, Sabitri Chatterjee, Moonmoon Sen, Ranjit Mullick, Dipankar Dey and Chiranjeet, among others. The opening film was Golpo Holeo Satyi, directed by Tapan Sinha.

The festival, with France as the focus country, will screen 126 feature films and 48 shorts and documentaries from 41 countries at 20 venues across the city over the next week.