Marathi, Bengali movies to be screened at Bangla film fest

Nagpur: ‘E Par Bangla O Par Bangla’, a three-day Bangla film festival, will be held at Platinum Hall of TBRA’s Mundle School, South Ambazari Road, from January 26 to 28. The festival will feature six films, including two in Marathi, which will be screened on the first and last day.
The film festival has been organized by Nikhil Bharat Banga Sahitya Sammelan, an over 100-year-old organization which works to spread Bangla culture to the community living outside Bengal, in collaboration with Nirzar Cine Club.Giving details of the festival on Thursday, Shubra Mukerjee, president of the Nagpur chapter of NBBSS said, “This is the second edition of the festival which we hold every alternate year. It is an attempt to show films in their language to the large Bengali community residing in Nagpur.”
Explaining the title of the festival, she said, “It refers to East and West Bengal as we will also be screening films made in Bangladesh.”
Six films have been picked up from 30 entries that it received for the festival. “Most of these films have been screened at prestigious film festivals. We have selected from different genres and also picked up two Marathi films as there is a lot of similarity between Bangla and Marathi culture,” said Maya Mukherjee, secretary of NBBSS.
Speaking about Marathi movies Nati Khel and Sanchar, which will be screened on January 26 and 28, city filmmaker Anurag Kulkarni said, “We have incorporated these films as both Marathi and Bangla films are content-oriented.” Director Nagesh Bhosle will be present during the screening of these films.
Kulkarni said, “We want to reduce the average age of the film audience and so want more youth to attend these screenings.” With so many platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Hotstar now available to the audience, the demand for good content will increase phenomenally and this opportunity can be taken up by young aspiring filmmakers. “Film festivals provide space for meaningful discussions among filmmakers post-screening and that is how youth can learn about various facets of cinema,” he added.
Jayanto Ghosh, all-India general secretary of NBBSS, will also be attending the event. The season pass for the festival is for Rs500 and a single day pass for Rs200. “The timing of screenings vary according to the length of the film,” said Rinku Chakraborty one of the organizers. “As the auditorium has a capacity of 300, seating will be on first-come-first-served basis,” Mukherjee added.