#KIFF2021: From comedy to theatre, Cine Adda debates take festival by storm

“Timing is the backbone of comedy,” said Ankush as the Cine Adda on Day 5 of the 26th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) kick-started with the topic, ‘Does comedy depend on dialogue?’. “We tend to constantly improve to bring out the best comic moment on screen,” said the actor. Anchored by Raj Chakrabarty, the event also saw Rituparna Sengupta, Aparajita Adhya, Manali Manisha Dey, Pinki Banerjee, Tulika Basu, Anirban Chakrabarti and Raja Chanda in attendance.
Taking a cue from Ankush’s opinion, Aparajita opined, “Even a very strong dialogue is not going to work unless the actor uses his or her own comic sense.” Tulika pointed out that co-actors are equally important to bring out the right comedy.
While remembering the legends of the golden era of Bengali cinema such as Bhanu Bandyopadhyay, Jahor Roy and others, Rituparna said having strong scripts for comedy scenes is a must.
How does theatre influence motion pictures?
Earlier on Tuesday, eminent theatre personalities including Subhasish Mukhopadhyay, Debshankar Halder, Rajatava Dutta, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Shantilal Mukherjee and Debesh Chattopadhyay discussed and debated how theatre influences motion pictures at the Cine Adda moderated by Chaiti Ghoshal.
Speaking from an actor’s perspective, Debshankar said, “Be it cinema or theatre, acting is acting. The flavour of acting can vary from medium to medium.” The actors also discussed how the intensity of delivering a performance differs in theatre and cinema. Rajatava said, “In theatre, an actor has to perform strongly so that even the person sitting in the last row of an auditorium can feel the emotion. In motion pictures, that intensity is mellower.” Debesh argued that the content of theatre in Bengal is more contemporary than that of cinema.
The panel came to the conclusion that the two mediums are complementary to each other and share a brotherhood.