The Chief Minister of the state of Kolkata Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday announced via her twitter handle that the annual Kolkata International Film Festival will be conducted digitally due to the ongoing COVID pandemic.
She also confirmed that Bollywood biggie King Khan aka Shah Rukh Khan will be attending the inaugural event virtually. The superstar had attended the inaugural event the previous year in 2019 as well.
Kolkata International Film Festival
The Chief Minister took to Twitter to make the announcement. “Together we will overcome this pandemic. But the show must go on. We are going ahead with #KIFF 2021 virtually, on a smaller scale. Glad that my brother @iamsrk will join us virtually at the inaugural event on Jan 8, 4pm. Watch Kolkata International Film Festival live,” the CM tweeted.
The 26th Kolkata International Film Festival was scheduled to take place from 5-12 November, 2020. However, due to the pandemic it had to be postponed. The Festival will now take place from 8-15 January, 2021. The KIFF committee has selected 132 feature films, documentaries, and short films to be screened at the festival.
Mama Banerjee has said that ‘the Kolkata International Film Festival is truly international and the biggest in India. This Festival is for everybody! It takes the joy of cinema to every neighborhood’.
Kolkata Film Festival which was started in the year 1995, was the culmination of a film society movement that drew its inspiration from the masters of Bengali Cinema – Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen.
Earlier, the Kolkata International Film Festival, though prestigious, was a comparatively small affair and hence it could not reach a large audience. Since 2011, under the guidance and inspiration of the Honorable Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee , the Festival has reached a whole new level in terms of profile, publicity and reach.
This film Festival has become a flagship event of the Government of West Bengal now. The Kolkata International Film Festival grew into a larger and more inclusive celebration of cinema, a festival which is not just grand in scale, but also accessible to the common mass.
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