Kids' film fest to make Xmas vacation special

KOLKATA: 'ET', 'Life of Pi', 'Alice in Wonderland', 'Around The World In 80 Days', 'Bicycle Thieves', 'Gold Rush', 'Pather Panchali'…
Catch all these classics and 179 more at the Sishu Kishore Akademy's film festival that kickstarts in the city on Friday. By the time the eight-day children film fest ends on December 27, you'll surely feel the winter vacation was well spent.
Not only the children, it is going be around the world in eight days for their parents as well. They just need to walk in with their kids as there is no entry fee. Though Mamata Banerjee will be present during the inaugural session, the film fest will be inaugurated by a special child - Shuvangi Mitra. Thespian Mohan Agashe will be the chief guest. The fest will begin with the screening of Oscar nominated 'Shwaas' and end with 'Fandry'.
"In all, 186 films will be screened in different halls of the city," said Arpita Ghosh, who heads the Sishu Kishore Akademy. The festival will pay tribute to Charlie Chaplin and ou very own Narayan Debnath. The veteran cartoonist will also be felicitated by the festival authority. The children will get a chance to attend workshop on animation films on December 22. In the Indian children panorama section, films like 'Hirer Angti', 'Gonsai Baganer Bhut', 'Sabuj Dwiper Raja', 'Patalghar' and 'Bal Ganesh' will be screened. There'll be a retrospective section on Kakababu as well.
Atri Bhattacharya, secretary of the information and cultural affairs department, said that here will be special screening of four old Bengali classics - 'Pather Panchali', 'Bari Theke Paliye', 'Atithi' and 'Hansaraj'.