Revisiting Kolkata film fest

doweshowbellyad=0; Shivajee Chandra Bhushan’s Frozen (TOI Photo)Next week, the Kolkata Film Festival will offer a global glimpse of the state of the cinema and the Festival will settle down to some serious cinematic business.
The 13th Kolkata Film Festival is all set to unspool from November 10 to 17. And guess who is going to grace the festival this year? Well, none other than the legendary Fernando Ezequiel ‘Pino’ Solanas.The Argentinian film-maker, who is also a candidate for his country’s general elections this year, will arrive here on November 11. Before leaving on November 13, he’ll address a seminar at Nandan on November 12 titled Revisiting Third Cinema.
Solanas apart, KFF might also play host to the daughter of Brazilian film-maker, theoretician and critic Glauber Rocha. Sources said that KFF is expected to have a retrospective of Jean Luc Godard, a major Latin American film package and could also showcase films by Israeli director Amos Gitai which deal with themes like replacement and dislocation.
For those who have a penchant for literary adaptation could look forward to the section on cinematic adaptations of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works, including Crime and Punishment. KFF will also pay tribute to Lawrence Olivier. Though officials are tight-lipped about the schedule, Nilanjan Chattopadhay, CEO, Nandan, said, We’ll be screening 250 films at 11 theatres. Last year, we screened films at nine venues. This year, we will also screen at SRFTI and Rabindra-Okakura Bhavan. Shyam Benegal will come down. Since last year, we’ve done away with the concept of thali girls. The Chief Minister will announce the details at a press conference on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Cine Central’s International Forum of New Cinema that’s also part of KFF will kick off at Metro with Shivajee Chandra Bhushan’s Frozen. The official website of the Toronto International Film Festival, which also screened this film in their Discovery Section this year, notes: Frozen marks a sometimes shocking break with India’s art cinema, favouring the subjective over the social, and a dissonant, contemporary tone over more traditional rhythms.
The closing film of the festival could either be Sarthak Dasgupta’s English film The Great Indian Butterfly or Kim Ki-duk’s South Korean film Birdcage Inn. My film will be screened at the Indo-American Art Council Fest in New York from where I’ll head straight to Kolkata. The reactions and validation from Kolkata is important,” said Mumbai-based Dasgupta. Kim Ki-duk’s film is about the survival strategy of a sex worker who has to relocate once a red-light district gets demolished.
Sources say that this forum will screen 78 recent films from 26 countries. The other notable screenings will include Jan Jakub Kolski’s Polish film Jasminum (2006), Richard Hobert’s Swedish film Harry’s Dottrar (2005), Joachim Hedén’s Swedish film New York Waiting (2006), Dimitris Stavrakas’ Greek film The Crossing (2000), Savvas Karyadas’ Greek film Close to the Edge (2006), Mona Zandi Haghighi’s Iranian film On a Friday Afternoon (2006), Wang Fen’s Chinese film The Case (2006) and Takashi Yamazaki’s Japanese film Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005).
Adventure film buffs could check out Johan Nijenhuis’ Zoop in India (2006) from Netherlands that was shot in India. The other Indian entries will include Deven Nair’s Malayalam film Athitham (2006), Sachin Kundalkar’s Marathi film Restaurant (2006) and Sashi Parvor’s Malayalam film Notom (2006). However, Afghani or Pakistani film buffs will be disappointed with the absence of any representation from these countries. Vasantha Obeysekera’s Sri Lankan film titled The Outcast and a five-digital film package from Bangladesh that will be screened at Gorky Sadan immediately after this festival is over could compensate those who are looking for jewels from our neighbouring countries.
As for the retrospectives, sources said that this forum will play tribute to Czech director Karel Kachyna by screening Death of a Fly, The Little Mermaid, Funny Man, Jumping Over Puddles Again, Smugglers of Death, The Cow, Meeting in July and Hanele. A retrospective of Spanish director Julio Medem will screen his Cows, The Red Squirrel, Sex and Lucia, The Skin Against Stone, Earth and The Lovers of the Arctic Circle.
Post Diwali, Kolkata cine-buffs seem to be in for more dhamaka onscreen.