Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday inaugurated 27th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF).
This year's festival is dedicated to veteran director Satyajit Ray as a part of his 100 birth anniversary.
Inaugurating the festival, the Chief Minister claimed that her government is working for the upliftment of the people and also remembered the actors, directors and singers who had died early this year.
“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. Bappi da even wanted me to write songs for him. They were all veterans,” said Mamata.
Mamata said that earlier the KIFF was cancelled due to the pandemic.
“Everyone said we wouldn’t have managed 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 and a total 163 movies will be screened across 42 countries,” further added the Chief Minister.
It can be noted that this year the theme country of KIFF is Finland.
Bollywood actor and TMC MP Shatrughan Sinha was also present at the programme.
Addressing the crowd, the TMC Asansol MP thanked Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and people of Asansol for giving him a chance to serve the people of Bengal.
“Bengal has produced several legends. I am close to Bengal. Now after winning the bypoll, the challenge is bigger. I will serve the people of Bengal and India in particular,” said Sinha.
The Bollywood actor also said that he had done a movie in Bengali ‘Antarjali Jatra’ directed by Gautam Ghose.
“My dream was always to work with Manik da (Satyajit Ray) but it remained a dream. I am a huge fan of Ray. I have learned from Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Utpal Dutt, and Ashok Kumar to name a few. Prasenjit Chattopadhyay is furthering the legacy of Bengali cinema and is doing a good job. I have done over 250 films but 'Antarjali Jatra' was my best film,” claimed the ‘Khamosh’ actor.
Sinha also urged that a special department should be dedicated to film festivals.
According to state government sources, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and other Bollywood actors couldn’t be invited due to time constraints.
