KOLKATA: As a tribute to Satyajit Ray’s centenary, ‘Aranyer Din Ratri’ has been finalized as the inaugural film of the 27th edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival.
Director Shoojit Sircar will deliver the Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture and his recent film, ‘Sardar Udham’, starring Vicky Kaushal, will also be shown as part of the Special Screening segment.
The segment will also screen Aparna Sen’s ‘The Rapist’, starring Konkona Sen Sharma and Arjun Rampal and Raj Chakraborty’s ‘Dharmajuddha’, starring Swatilekha Sengupta, Ritwick Chakraborty, Subhashree Ganguly, Soham Chakraborty and Parno Mittra. Chakraborty’s film will be screened as a tribute to Sengupta, who passed away this year.
‘Aranyer Din Ratri’, which was released in 1970, was nominated as the Best Film for the Golden Bear award at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. “A number of Ray’s films, including ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’, ‘Parash Pathar’, ‘Devi’ and ‘Mahanagar’, were considered for the opening. But ‘Aranyer Din Ratri’ was chosen. A favourite of hers, our chief minister personally wanted it as the inaugural film. Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan and Shabana Azmi will attend the inauguration in person,” said a source.
An interesting package of contemporary masterpieces, including Carlos Saura’s ‘The King Of All The World’, Pedro Almadovar’s ‘Parallel Mothers’ and Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Hero’, have been lined up. ‘A Hero’ not only shared the Grand Prix award at this year’s Cannes but was also shortlisted as the 2022 Oscar contender in the Best International Film section from Iran. Juho Kuosmanen’s Finish film, ‘Compartment No 6’, which shared the Grand Prix at Cannes with ‘A Hero’, will be screened. It’s among the 15 shortlisted films competing for the Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.
Julia Ducournau’s ‘Titane’, this year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, along with Leos Carax ‘Annette’ that won the Best Director award at Cannes, will be up for viewing. Interesting films that competed at Cannes but didn’t win an award have also been programmed by KIFF. That includes Mahamat Saleh Haroun’s ‘Lingui, The Sacred Bonds’ and Semih Kaplanoglu’s Turkish film, ‘Commitment Hasan’. “Nanni Moretti’s ‘Three Floors’ and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ‘Memoria’, which premiered at Cannes 2021 will be screened as well,” the source added.
Films that won big at Venice and Berlin are also heading for Kolkata. Audrey Diwan’s ‘The Happening’, which won the Golden Lion at Venice, along with Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog’, which won the Silver Lion for Best Director will be here. Berlin’s Dénes Nagy’s ‘Natural Light’ that won the Silver Bear For Best Director will also be screened.
