Kolkata to be theme for film festival

KOLKATA: The city itself will be theme for this year's Kolkata International Film Festival that gets underway on November 10. Under the title Calcutta/Kolkata, the theme will try to catch the city's transformation over the decades and its portrayal on screen. While a string of films by Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Gautam Ghose and Rituparno Ghosh has been chosen to catch the depiction of Kolkata and its metamorphosis on the silver screen, a unique exhibition of still photographs taken by Ray is also on the cards.
"Kolkata is a vibrant city and it has always caught the fancy of our film-makers. It has been represented in a myriad ways in films since the Sixties, especially by Ray and Sen. We felt that this in itself was important and fascinating enough to be made into a theme," said Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, a member of the festival committee. Among the celebrated films that have been chosen under the theme section are Mrinal Sen's "Interview", "Padatik" and Ray's "Pratidwandi", "Jana Aranya" and "Seemabadhha" - also referred to as the Kolkata trilogy. Gautam Ghose's "Kalbela", a more recent film, would be a part as well apart from two of his documentaries - "The Hungry Autumn" and "The Image-makers of Calcutta" - which feature Kolkata in a big way. The first is about Kolkata in the aftermath of the Naxalite movement and the second deals with the city's potter colony - Kumartuli. Most of these films will be screened in Kolkata after a long interval. Never before had a city been the festival theme.
What film-lovers and students of cinema could find interesting is the similarity in which the city and its problems have been protrayed in Ray's and Sen's films, said experts. "Strangely, both "Pratidwandi" and "Padatik" are similar in their approach and in the way the city has come into the film. Both deal with the unemployment problem and the Naxalite movement that had shaken Kolkata in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Even the lead actor in the two films was the same person - Dhritiman Chattopadhyay. Violence and youth dominated the films of that era and Kolkata looks uncannily similar in the two films. This is true of a few other films by these two greats which have Kolkata as the backdrop," said Ujjal Chakraborty, senior teacher at Roopkola Kendro and an author of film books.
The idea behind the theme is to catch the city's transformation into its modern avatar from a Raj-era town, through a turbulent period. "A chaotic city which doesn't know which way it's heading - that's how Kolkata has been depicted in the films. This has been true of Kolkata for a long time and we have probably emerged from that state only recently. Somehow, the city has never been celebrated in films that were made in the later decades. Ghose's "Kalbela" is an exception," said Mukhopadhyay.
About a hundred still photographs by Ray will be exhibited at the festival as part of the theme. While these may include some cinema stills taken by the master, most will be shots clicked by him on the streets of Kolkata between from the early Fifties to the mid-Sixties. "Ray was most active as a photographer during this period, after which he gradually reduced clicking photos. But he had been a keen photographer since he was in school. Some of the shots taken by him even as a youngster are fascinating. He preferred mid-long shots, with contrasting images as his subjects. Famous French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson was his idol and he modelled himself on him. For instance, if he had a child in the frame, he would invariably include an old man. Portraits of unknown faces on the streets of Kolkata were also his favourite. And yes, Kolkata with all its magic and mystique formed a perfect backdrop," said Chakraborty. The exhibition, that will be held at the ground floor of Nandan during the festival, could also include stills of "Pather Panchali". A few portraits of eminent people like Akira Kurosawa, once clicked by Ray without his trademark dark glasses, could feature at the exhibition.