Abhinandan Banerjee’s directorial debut to be screened at KIFF

Abhinandan Banerjee’s debut film

Manikbabur Megh

, which premiered at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival last year in the First Feature Competition and was also part of the Indian Panorama at IFFI Goa, has been declared as one of the top 10 Indian Films of 2021 by Fipresci-India. The film will also be screened in Kolkata in the competition section of the forthcoming

Kolkata International Film Festival

. The film was also in the competition section at the 37th Santa Barbara International Film Festival which was held this year in March.
The Cloud & The Man starring Chandan Sen, Bratya Basu, Debesh Roy Chowdhury, Nimai Ghosh and

Arun Guhathakurta

is the story of a guy named Manik who lives in the crumbling city of Kolkata. Loner by nature and unsocial by choice, he lives with his ailing father who is nothing more than an alarm clock to him. Manik leads an uneventful life that revolves around his plants, the strays he feeds, the spider, the ants, and the house lizard. Manik’s father passes away one day and he finds himself in a quandary. He is served a month’s notice to vacate the rented house he stays in. Just when the world around him starts falling apart, Manik meets someone that would change his life and the course of our story for good. He meets a cloud. Initially mistaking the cloud as a stalker, Manik soon discovers his folly and the story takes a turn from there. “It is a story of a cloud and a man. The surreal romance brings out a new Manik in him and propels him into a roller coaster journey of faith, betrayal, belief, and warmth,” said the director. He added, “As a Bengali filmmaker, it is overwhelming that my debut film is travelling to so many national and international festivals. The news of Fipresci-India has made me immensely proud as it is the only Bengali film among all nine other Indian films to feature on the top 10 list.”