Britain to be focus country in Kolkata International Film Festival

Kolkata: To commemorate the UK-India Year of Culture 2017,

Britain

is being chosen as the focus country for the

Kolkata International Film Festival

(KIFF). Last year, China was chosen as the focus country for the cine festival. Not just a spread of British classics and contemporary films, this festival might become more special if the

KIFF

organisers manage to bring British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom to Kolkata between November 10 and 14.

Keeping in mind CM Mamata Banerjee's dream of transforming Kolkata into London, at least two Durga Puja organisers this year had chosen London as their theme. Choosing Britain as the focus country for KIFF will only help foster the Indo-UK ties.

Incidentally, the festival will also see a package of seven Moroccan films. A delegation of actors, directors and producers from Morocco is expected to fly down to Kolkata to attend the festival. Initially, there were suggestions of having Morocco as the focus country.

Yadav Mandal, KIFF director, remained tight-lipped. "A meeting on choosing Britain as the focus country was held at Nabanna. KIFF had wanted to invite acclaimed British director Ken Loach to the festival. Though this plan didn't materialise, a retrospective of Winterbottom's films is being organised," said a source.

This retrospective is expected to include his 2011 film titled 'Trishna' that had Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed in the lead. The film, which is supposed to be a loose adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles', is Winterbottom's third Hardy adaptation after 'Jude' and 'The Claim'.

This apart, the retrospective is also expected to screen his 1997 film titled 'Welcome to Sarajevo' about a disillusioned war reporter covering the Bosnian war. There are also talks about including the 2006 British docudrama - 'The Road to Guantanamo'. The film, which is about the incarceration of three British citizens who were captured in 2001 in Afghanistan and detained by the United States there and for more than two years at the detainment camp in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba), had won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival.

For the festival audience, Winterbottom's most controversial film titled '9 Songs' has a special interest. Showcased at Cannes Film Festival, '9 Songs' is often regarded as the most sexually explicit mainstream film to have released in the UK till date. So is 'The Killer Inside Me' that was in the news for its graphic depiction of violence directed towards women. But it's still unclear if these films will finally make it to KIFF.