The 30th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) is paying tribute to Bengali film doyen Tapan Sinha in his birth centenary year by screening five of his films and organising an exhibition containing posters of his films and shooting stills.
While Sinha's 1966 film 'Galpo Holeo Satti' was the inaugural film screened at a packed auditorium on the opening day, four other films of his - 'Harmonium' (1976), 'Nirjan Saikate' (1963), 'Kabuliwala' (1957) and 'Banchharamer Bagan' (1980)- will be screened on various days in the tribute section.
An exhibition, containing stills of Sinha's over 40 films - both in Bengali and Hindi - was inaugurated at the foyer of Nandan, the main venue of KIFF on Thursday, the second day of the festival.
The stills and posters included 'Kabuliwala' (1957), 'Jhinder Bandi' (1961), 'Hatey Bazarey' (1967), 'Sagina Mahato' (1970), 'Atanka' (1986) among others.
Inaugurating the exhibition, actor-MP Satabdi Roy, who was cast in the lead role of 'Atanka', said "he (Tapan Sinha) was like a guardian to me. He had cast me in Atanka when I was a higher secondary student. But his comforting words dispelled all my tensions on set." Roy recalled that as she was supposed to look older than her real age in that film, as a college student, Sinha and his actor-wife Arundhati Devi took charge of her image make-over and treated her as their daughter.
"Tapan Sinha's forte is his narrative which is so communicable, understandable and relatable to the general audience and yet bearing the hallmark of a clean entertainment with social messages relevant for the society and reflecting the contemporary times," she said.
There will also be a seminar on Tapan Sinha on December 11, in which artists and crew who worked in his films will be felicitated.
Centenary tributes will also be paid to Marlon Brando, Marcello Mastroianni, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Sergei Parajanov, Arundhati Debi and Harisadhan Dasgupta. PTI SUS RG
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