KIFF comes to a close

KOLKATA: The 22nd edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival that was held between November 11 and 18 can well be called the year when debutants swept most of the awards. In the international competition for women directors, all the three awards went to first-time film-makers. While Iranian midwife-turned-director Nahid Hasanzadeh’s “Another Time” got the Best Film by a Woman Director award along with a cash prize of Rs 51 lakh, Yao Tingting got the Best Woman Director award for “Yesterday Once More”.Even the special jury mention that was given in the same category went to first-time film-makers Mili Ben Hayl and Tamar Shippony’s “Cheer Me Up”.
The list of debutant winners at Friday evening’s Nazrul Mancha show doesn’t end there. The Best Short Film award went to Ashok Veilou’s debut work titled “Tao-Tai”. The award for the Best Documentary went to Farha Khatun, Satarupa Santra and Sourabh Kanti Dutta’s “I Am Bonnie”. This too is the trio’s first award for their debut documentary that is based on the life of transman Bonnie Pal. Dutta was happy that Bonnie and his wife Swati were present in person at the award ceremony. Bonnie, on his part, was jubilant. “The last time I was on stage was in 1997 when my golden goal had helped Bengal win the final of the national championship for women’s football. This was my first time on stage for a film award ceremony. I am so happy,” Bonnie said.
In the Asian select (NETPAC award), Haoban Paban Kumar’s “Lady of The Lake” emerged as co-winner along with Bradley Liew’s Malaysian film titled “Singing in Graveyards”. “Last year, my ‘Phum Shang (Floating life)’ had also won the Best Documentary award at KIFF,” said this alumnus of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute.
The Best Director award in the newly introduced award in the international competition in Innovations in Moving Images went to Kivanc Sezer’s “My Father’s Wings” which marks his foray into feature film direction. The Best Film award in this category went to Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s Bulgarian-Greek drama “Glory”.
The awards were given away by Bollywood star Raveena Tandon who was felicitated by Tollywood actor Tanushree Chakraborty. Tandon thanked her “Mamata didi” for inviting her over, appreciated KIFF’s “cinema for all” theme and spoke about how the Golden Royal Bengal Tiger award is now “envied across the world”. With director Sujoy Ghosh emceeing the evening, the closing ceremony began with song and dance presentations by Tanushree Shankar’s troupe, among others before finance minister Amit Mitra elaborated on how the festival had become such an important event in the cultural calendar of cine-buffs. “Culture has no language barriers,” Mitra said while introducing various international films that were screened at this edition of the festival from November 11 to 18. As for Indian masters, he referred to the cinema of Ray, Ghatak and Sen. Recounting his student days at Presidency College, Mitra spoke about how Ghatak was called there though he didn’t agree with the film-maker’s ideology. “Next year, I hope it becomes a carnival of a festival,” he added.
While Mitra spoke, international jury chairpersons Marion Hansel and Dan Wolman along with jury members of all the competitive sections of the festival were present in the audience. So were the political bigwigs like Arup Biswas, Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Sovan Chatterjee and Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, KIFF’s present and past festival chairmen Goutam Ghose and Ranjit Mullick respectively, veteran actor Madhabi Mukherjee, vocalist Pt Ajoy Chakraborty and director general of KIFF Atri Bhattacharya and KIFF director Yadav Mandal. Both Mandal and Bhattacharya were praised by Mitra for doing a “fantastic” job. Proceeds from the sale of tickets at KIFF was given to the chief minister's fund and technicians' welfare association.
An elated Nahid was visibly moved when she accepted her award from Tandon. “My film is about a father who discovers that his daughter has given birth to a boy out of wedlock. I’m so glad that Kolkata audience has accepted my film,” Nahid said holding on to the first award in her career while awaiting more to come by.