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As many as 100 films from 62 countries were screened at the recent
THE eight-day-long 14th Kolkata Film Festival (KFF) held recently screened around 276 films, retrospectives, tributes and celluloid ‘pearls’ and ‘diamonds’ from across the world. There were 17 Indian entries, 44 short films, eight documentaries and several children’s films. As many as 100 foreign films from 62 countries were screened, of which Iranian independent film defined a special focus. Shah Rukh Khan, who had agreed to light the lamp to open the festival, had to back out for prior commitments. Centenary tributes were paid to Jacques Tati (four films) and Devika Rani (one film). Ernst Lubitsch (Germany), Carlos Saura (Spain) and Theo Angelopoulos (Greece) formed the Great Masters Section while homage was paid to German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. South Korea’s strapping young Kim Ki Duk (South Korea) proved to be a major draw as the only director to grace the Discovery Section. 90 Years of LEN Films from Russia screened four unusual and recent films from Russia. Italian filmmaker Cristiano Bortone’s Red in the Sky (2007) inspired by the true story of blind Mirco Mencacci, considered one of the most gifted sound designers in contemporary Italian cinema, was the inaugural film. The film is a moving tale of a 10-year-old boy who rises above his loss of vision in a freak accident to concentrate on his hearing ability. Aesthetically, too, the film wanders across the greens beyond the corridors of the special residential school, and then moves in and out of the boy’s secret experiments with his tape along with like-minded friends who rally around him.
A disturbing yet mind-blowing experience was Tom Tykwer’s Perfume — The Story of a Murderer (2006), the celluloid version of a popular novel. It narrated the horrific tale of Grenouille, who was born with a miraculous sense of smell but was never a part of mainstream society and therefore, completely devoid of emotions like love, feelings and a sense of values. To attain excellence in manufacturing perfumes, he goes on a killing spree of 12 girls whose corpses he uses for his bizarre experiment. Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn (2008) takes one back to the massacre of 22,000 Poles by the Russians in the beginning of World War II. The film tries to explore what happens to the women who lost their men in the massacre. Incidentally, Wajda’s father was one of the victims. An original conception was Satyajit Ray offered in a new light. One was a special section of Hollywood films that were Ray’s favourites. The other was a screening programme of restored films of Ray that were deemed lost or destroyed over the years. The Hollywood films screened were Buster Keaton’s The General, Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise, Sam Wood’s A Night at the Opera, John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Ray’s restored films were Three Daughters, Aparajito and The Philosopher’s Stone. All-time Greats featured five films from across Europe covering around 25 years from 1960 to 1986. Among the 16 films in the Indian Select section, Girish Kasaravalli’s Gulabi Talkies was the talk of the festival. Other notable films were Assamese filmmaker Manju Borah’s Ma, on the conflict between the Nagas and the Assamese, Nandita Das’s moving Firaaq, dwelling on the impact of the Gujarat communal killings on different people from either community, ad Sachin Kundalkar’s Marathi film Nirop that questions the morality of a man’s decision to turn independent immune to its impact on his personal relationships.
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