KIFF: Day 3

Irrfan, dressed in a moss green blazer, blue shirt and denims, was his usual nonchalant self when he walked into Nandan to catch Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s Labour of Love. Turns out, this was on his to-do list since the two met at the Abu Dhabi Festival, recently.
Way before that, Aditya had approached Irrfan for a Hindi movie that he was planning. “Aditya requested me not to watch his movie on DVD and said he’ll hold a special screening for me,” said Irrfan. Since it was already being screened at KIFF, Irrfan decided to drop by, taking time off from Piku for which he is in town. Even though the Kolkata traffic resulted in him missing the first few minutes of the film, Irrfan looked visibly excited about watching it and was spotted sharing a few laughs with Aditya on his way to the auditorium.

The 3.15 pm show on the third day of the festival was hit by a technical snag. That not just affected the screening of Iranian actress-director Niki Karimi’s One Night, but also the audience’s mood. The disgruntled movie lovers let their displeasure known and even though the screening resumed after some time, persistent technical faults were indeed a cause of concern.

He might have been stopped outside Nandan on the first day of the film festival, but there was no stopping Amol Palekar as he took to the stage to be part of a discussion on Indian cinema on Thursday.
Cinema is not only about the story. Cinema, as a medium, is distinct from literature and, thus, it needs to be studied in a different light,” he said, adding how average pieces of literature, when adapted for screen, have made for visual delights. He continued, “In the digital era, learning about cinema can start with your mobile phones. When people get to the task of recording events or clicking pictures on their mobile phones, more often than not, they are just trying to document an incident, without sparing a thought for the creative angle of the footage,” he said, pointing at the audience to add, “Many of you who are making a video of my speech right now, are not concerned about the right angle or the right light. But if you do take them into account, the same footage can turn into something extremely cinematic.” Palekar was joined by Arindam Sil, Bappaditya Bandopadhyay and Jagannath Guha.

PB Chaki, Sekhar Das and Ritwick Chakraborty (In picture: left to right) were spotted sharing some laughs over steaming cuppas. Ritwick, whose performance in Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s Labour Of Love was hugely appreciated, came to catch the film. We also spotted Koel Mallick second day in a row.