Mamata inaugurates 26th KIFF, allows full occupancy of Bengal theatres

West Bengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee on Friday virtually inaugurated the 26th KolkataInternational Film Festival (KIFF) and allowed full occupancyof cinema halls in the state with adherence to COVID safetyprotocols.

The inaugural ceremony was also virtually attended byBollywood superstar and West Bengal's brand ambassador ShahRukh Khan from Mumbai.

Legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray's classic 'ApurSansar' will be the inaugural film of the festival in which131 movies from 45 countries will be screened till January 13.

Banerjee, while delivering her inaugural address fromstate secretariat Nabanna, asked the cinema hall owners tomaintain all safety protocols including regular sanitisationof the theatres.

She asked Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay to issuea notification raising the occupancy limit of theatres from 50to 100 per cent.

The occupancy limit was restricted to ensure physicaldistancing inside the theatres.

Citing lesser revenues since the reopening of theatresin October last year and no known instance of the spread ofCOVID-19 through cinema halls, the theatre owners had recentlywritten a letter to the chief minister requesting her to allowfull occupancy of the establishments.

Banerjee said apart from issuing e-passes for seeingfilms in state-run auditoriums in Nandan-Rabindra Sadan andRabindra Okakura Bhavan, organisers should spare some thoughtfor people who are not well-versed with technology andsuggested if some films could be screened at the open-airtheatre in Nandan.

Despite the pandemic situation, the West Bengalgovernment has hosted the 26th KIFF on a smaller scale at atime when many organisers of other film festivals havecancelled their events, she said.

Banerjee paid tributes to legendary actor SoumitraChatterjee, who died due to post-COVID complications lastyear, and other luminaries and said a section will bededicated to their works.

Noting that the Bengali film industry, popularly knownas Tollywood, has one of the best talents in the world,Banerjee said, ''One day we will beat Bollywood, Hollywood tooccupy the number one position in the world.'' ''We had West Bengal's pride Uttam Kumar, SoumitraChatterjee and Suchitra Sen in the past, and presently haveMadhabi Mukherjee and Sabitri Chatterjee among others,'' shesaid.

She invited Khan to visit the state during RakshaBandhan and next year's KIFF, to which he replied inaffirmative.

The actor has been attending the film festival since2011 but could not visit Kolkata this year due to the pandemicsituation.

Bengali actors June Malia and Parambrata Chatterjeehosted the inauguration programme at Nandan in the presence offilmmakers Goutam Ghose, Raj Chakraborty, Arindam Sil andactors Rituparna Sengupta, Dev, Soham and Paoli Dam amongothers.

A short film with snippets from different movies ofSoumitra Chatterjee and his stage production on King Leer withhis voice-over was screened at the programme.

All the attendees wore masks and maintained socialdistancing.

Films will be screened at Rabindra Sadan, Nandan,Sisir Mancha and Rabindra Okakura Bhavan in Salt Lake.

Six films by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini andmovies on sitarist Ravi Shankar, singer Hemanta Mukherjee andflicks of comedian Bhanu Bandyopadhyay will be screened.