MUMBAI MIRROR (November 6, 2017)

To commemorate the UK-India Year of Culture 2017, Britain will be the focus country for the 23rd edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF). India’s second oldest fi lm fest will also pay homage to the late icons of Indian cinema, actors Tom Alter and Om Puri and cinematographer Ramananda Sengupta with films like Shatranj Ke Khiladi, Sadgati and Headmaster.

Kicking off on November 10, KIFF will screen 143 films spanning 53 countries under 16 different categories till November 17. This will include 13 films from UK with a six-film retrospective of acclaimed Brit filmmaker Michael Winterbottom.

Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan will be present at the inaugural ceremony. Kamal Haasan and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt are also expected to attend the ceremony, to be presided over by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The women’s director’s competition has been replaced by ‘Innovation in Moving Images’ with a prize of Rs 51 lakh for the best film and Rs 21 lakh for best director. The Indian languages competition section has been introduced this year, with 10 films in nine languages in contention for the Hiralal Sen Memorial Award. Eight films in languages like Monpa, Konkani, Kodava, Dogri, Maithili, Khasi and Chakma will be featured in the ‘Unheard India: Rare Indian Languages’ section.

Six films of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, one of Thailand’s most celebrated directors is also on show, as also an exposition of original equipment used by the Lumiere brothers, Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak.