A film festival organised entirely on the strength of voluntary labour and financial contributions from audiences and well-wishers turns 12 this year.
The rejection of any institutional — government, corporate, CSR or NGO — funding, sponsorship, partnership or endorsement has ensured autonomy and maintained the political edge of the festival, said organisers.
Cover art in the festival booklet features the figure of a pregnant Muslim woman at the borderlands, referencing the plight of Sunali Khatun, a victim of forced deportation. Hanging from the fences is the lifeless figure of a girl, alluding to Felani Khatoon, the teenager shot dead by border security forces at the India-Bangladesh border in January 2011. The back cover portrays a group of women and children confronting a payloader, once again highlighting recent cruel incidents of pushbacks of Bengali people.
The 12th edition of the Kolkata People’s Film Festival (KPFF), slated to be held at Uttam Mancha in Hazra between January 23 and 26, will screen 39 films featuring a wide range of compelling stories from India and beyond, aiming to explore common themes of labour and migration, resistance movements, caste, gender, ethnic struggles, and the ongoing fight against fascist and authoritarian regimes.
The festival opens with Myanmar Resistance, based on students who turned guerrilla fighters against the military junta. Most of these fighters had tasted freedom and had never imagined they would have to take up arms and fight. The Italian director, Tommaso Cotronei, spent weeks in the forest, camping with these fighters. The Calcutta screening will be the world premiere of the film.
Encountering Hate (Nafrat ka Saamna), directed by Lalit Vachani, revolves around case studies of hate crimes in north India. It follows a human rights lawyer as he provides legal help to his clients — victims of mob lynchings, vigilante violence and police encounter killings.
“We realised the deeproots of structural violence against Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, well known as the laboratory of Hindu nationalism in India,” the director said.
Marching in the Dark, directed by Kinshuk Surjan, is set against the backdrop of an escalating crisis of farmer suicides in Maharashtra. The Marathi film tells the story of a young widow intent on the seemingly impossible task of providing a better life for herself and her children, refusing to surrender to despair or the cultural ostracisation ofwidows.
A Dream Called Khushi, directed by Rishabh Raj Jain, is set in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, home to a million Rohingyas and dubbed the largest refugee camp in the world. It tells the story of a Rohingya girl who fights for her right to education in the camp. She dreams of a life in Canada, where she can study. The director previously worked as an award-winning video-journalist for the Associated Press, covering the South Asian subcontinent.
“We received over 200 films. We will screen 39. A series of films we have curated is about migration. Across the world, Right-wing politics is anti-immigrant politics. From Donald Trump’s policies in the US to the ongoing SIR in Bengal, the target is an imagined outsider,” said Dwaipayan Banerjee, one of the organisers of the festival.