Ritwik Ghatak to receive centenary tribute at 31st Kolkata International Film Festival

The 31st edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) is set to highlight films by maestro Ritwik Ghatak, with screenings of six of his films during the festival between November 6 and November 13.

The event is scheduled to be held across 21 venues, with a total of 215 films from 39 countries selected for screening.

The festival will also honour Ritwik Ghatak as it is the director’s 100th year birth anniversary. As part of a Centenary Tribute, Ghatak’s films including Ajantrik (1958), Bari Theke Paliye (1958), Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komal Gandhar (1961), Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (1973), and Subarnarekha (1965) will be screened. 

Centenary tributes are also being held in honour of Welsh actor Richard Burton, American filmmaker Sam Peckinpah, and actor Santosh Dutta, music director Salil Chowdhury, and filmmaker Raj Khosla from India.

The works of Shyam Benegal, David Lynch, Claudia Cardinale, Robert Redford, Arun Roy, Raja Mitra and Shashi Anand are also set to be screened in the KIFF as part of a special tribute.

“The 35mm celluloid of Raja Mitra’s 1997 film Nayantara is scheduled to be screened on Nov 12 at Kolkata’s Radha Studio as part of the 31st KIFF,” West Bengal minister Aroop Biswas said.

Film lovers will also get to watch five films by Filipino filmmaker Brilliante Mendoza as part of a retrospective.

Ramesh Sippy to deliver memorial lecture

Additionally, director of the celebrated 1975 film Sholay, Ramesh Sippy, will be delivering the Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture as part of the 31st KIFF at Kolkata’s Sisir Mancha on November 7, Principal Secretary of the Information and Cultural Affairs Department said.

He also announced a slew of seminars and exhibitions scheduled to be held during the festival.

These include the Ritwik Ghatak Memorial Conversation between filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Anup Singh, a centenary tribute to Ritwik Ghatak, a masterclass by filmmaker Brilliante Mendoza, seminars on Guru Dutt, Polish cinema, displacement and migration, and AI in cinema.

The focus country for this year’s film festival is Poland. Around 19 Polish films will be screened as part of the Poland focus, under categories like Contemporary Polish Cinema, Centenary Tribute to Wojciech Has, Polish Great Masters, Polish Animation and Family Focus, Animated Shorts, and Indo-Polish documentaries. 

Special categories have also been dedicated to films on displacement and migration as well as environment, and sports.

Mr Biswas announced that the inaugural ceremony of the 31st KIFF will be held on November 6 at the Dhono Dhanyo Auditorium. The 1961 Bengali classic, Saptapadi, directed by Ajoy Kar and starring Suchitra Sen, Uttam Kumar, Chhabi Biswas and others, will be screened as the inaugural film of the 31st KIFF.

Among the 215 films selected for screening are 132 feature-length films and 83 short films and documentaries, spanning competitive and non-competitive categories.