The 24th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) began this evening at the Netaji Indoor Stadium.
It was jointly inaugurated by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Dadasaheb Phalke awardee Soumitra Chatterjee and veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan.
171 full-time movies and 150 small-time movies of 70 countries will be shown at 16 locations. The highlight of this year’s festival is that it celebrates 100 years of Bengali Cinema.
So the list of films to be screened will include some brilliant masterpieces from Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen among others.
Special guests such as Jaya Bachchan, Iranian director Mazid Mazidi, Wahida Rahman, Shah Rukh Khan, Mahesh Bhatt and several others were present on this occasion.
A centenary tribute will also be paid to legendary Swedish director-producer Ingmar Bergman through the screening of eight of his outstanding movies.
The eight-day extravaganza, considered to be the country’s second oldest film fest, also has a plethora of award-winning international films from US, Spain, France and Russia.