Film fest centenary tribute to Dadamoni

KOLKATA: Several norms and traditions are set to be broken at this year's Kolkata International Film Festival. While the inaugural programme has been moved from Nandan to Netaji Indoor Stadium, Bollywood legend Ashok Kumar has been chosen for a homage under the centenary tribute section — so far reserved for renowned non-mainstream directors.
Last year, legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa had been featured in the section along with a special tribute to Rabindranath Tagore, through films based on his stories.While Ashok Kumar's selection on his centenary has pleased film-lovers, those associated with the festival believe this could set a trend.
Four of Kumar's films — 'Achchhyut Kanya', 'Kismet', 'Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi' and 'Haatey Bajare' — will be screened. "It was prompted by the fact that Ashok Kumar is a legend and this year happens to be his centenary. Even though he was a mainstream actor, he was a father-figure of the Hindi film industry for a long time. He deserves a tribute," said a member of the festival committee. Some experts felt this could open up the doors for other mainstream legends as well who had so far been kept out. "It's the norm in film festivals across the world to stick to directors or actors from alternative cinema. Soumitra Chatterjee, for instance, was honoured with a retrospective of his films at the Paris festival a few years ago. Only those directed by Ray were screened.
The films starring Ashok Kumar have mainstream ingredients like song-and-dance sequences which perhaps don't gel with the festival milieu. But this was probably expected since the festival committee has already taken in several mainstream actors as members," said Ujjal Chakraborty, senior teacher at the Roopkola Kendro. But there was nothing wrong with including a legend like Ashok Kumar, he maintained. "Roopkala Kendro, in fact, paid a tribute to him last year alongside Kurosawa through retrospectives of their films. It was held at Nandan which also held an annual retrospective of Uttam Kumar's movies till recently, though not as part of the festival," he said.
While the festival committee is ready with the tribute films, the print of 'Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi' is not yet available. "There are some concerns about the print but it should be arranged in due course," said Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, a member of the festival committee. Meanwhile, plans are also set to be drawn up for converting Netaji Indoor into a makeshift auditorium. Acoustic arrangements will be altered and a screen put up for the inaugural film that will follow the inauguration.