Nandita Das will attend the festival with her directorial debut Firaaq

Rainer Fassbinder, Theo Angelopoulos, Carlos Saura, Ernst Lubitsch, Eric Rohmer, Alain Tanner, Satyajit Ray... The 14th Calcutta Film Festival has culled an eclectic mix of past and contemporary filmmakers to be showcased for eight days from November 10 at Nandan and other venues.

About 276 old and new films — some as recent as 2005-2006 — have been chosen from across 62 nations.

The festival begins with Italian director Cristiano Bortone’s 2007 film Red Like The Sky about a visually challenged boy who becomes a successful music director. The curtains come down on November 17 with Suman Mukhopadhyay’s period piece Chaturanga, starring Rituparna Sengupta.

The focus this year is on Latin American films, being screened “for the first time at Calcutta Film Festival,” said chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at Nandan on Saturday.

The spread includes Dao Duy Phuc’s The Life (Vietnam), Hernan Gaffet’s City in Heat (Argentina), Claudio Llosa’s Made in USA (Peru), Bruno Safadi’s My Name is Dindi (Brazil) and Simon Bross’s Bad Habits (Mexico).

The five films in the All-time Great Film section are Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and 8½, Jan Kadar and Elma Klos’s Shop in the High Street, Lina Wertmuller’s All Screwed Up and Karel Kachyan’s Forbidden Dreams.

The Centenary Tribute will focus on the works of French director Jacques Tati, while the Discovery section turns the spotlight on controversial South Korean director Kim Ki Duk, known for his art-house films.

One of the festival highlights is a section dedicated to Satyajit Ray. “We are calling it ‘Remembering Ray’, where we will screen his favourite Hollywood films,” added Bhattacharjee. The line-up includes Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Clyde Bruckman’s The General, Ernst Lubitsch’s Troble in Paradise, Sam Wood’s A Night at the Opera, John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon and Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity.

The festival will also screen four of Ray’s restored films — Teen Kanya, Aparajito, Parash Pathar and Joy Baba Felunath. An added attraction is Ray’s short film Two.

“Two was never released commercially. It’s a children’s film about two little boys, one is very poor and the other is rich,” said festival chairman Soumitra Chatterjee.

Actress Nandita Das will be a special guest at the festival with her directorial debut Firaaq, which has two shows.