KIFF Day 5

Day 5 of the festival saw a massive turnout, with thousands of city film-lovers landing at Nandan on Saturday evening.
While many attributed the crowd to the weekend, it soon turned out that not many among the thousands were deeply interested in catching a movie at the festival. They just seemed to have been drawn to the most happening place in town.

We also spotted Mamata Shankar at the fest venue, along with a host of celebrities, including Anik Dutta and director Pradipta Bhattacharyya. But the danseusecum-actress didn't hang around for too long after the crowd started swelling.
“I participated in a panel discussion on comedy and satire at the fest on Saturday .Seeing so many people at the venue came as a pleasant surprise," Anik said.

Anindya Chatterjee's first feature film, Jhumura, was screened as part of the Bengali Panorama at KIFF on Saturday. Interacting with mediapersons, the director said the film was an attempt to preserve the nuances of the rich jhumur culture of the state for posterity . “I wanted to make a documentary to begin with, but decided on a feature film as that's the best way to create interest about a subject,“ he said. Anindya was accompanied by other members of the cast, including Samadarshi Dutta, Sohini Sarkar and Parthasarathi.
(From left to right: Sohini Sarkar, Samadarshi Dutta, Anindya Chatterjee & Parthasarathi)

Samardarshi, too, was excited about the film. “Since Anindya is a childhood friend, working with him was a great experience. As for the film, I'd say more such films should be made to create awareness about the state's rich cultural heritage," he said.
Many viewers, however, rued the quality of the screening, alleging that the format used (blu ray) had led to quality loss and that the screen had stitches on it.

Gaariwala, a children's film by Bangladeshi filmmaker Ashraf Shishir that was also screened at the fest on Saturday, tells the tale of two brothers whose lives revolve around racing ball bearing cars in the fields of their village. Their ultimate dream is to own such a car and win a race with it. And they set out to fulfil that dream by selling water lillies in the city. That's where they meet their rickshaw-puller father, who had remarried after leaving them and their mother two years ago.

The young filmmaker said during an interaction that Bollywood is stuck with films portraying too much violence and song-and-dance sequences. “This has influenced filmmaking all over India, be the south, east or north, leading to similar movies all over the country . Moreover, it has transcended borders to have an impact on smaller film industries like the one in Bangladesh. Not only is this having a negative impact on the local culture, but is also stifling creativity," Ashraf said, adding that he wanted to make films that broke away from this creative myopia and Gaariwala was an attempt in that.