KIFF set to felicitate five Bengali actresses from Bollywood

The 19th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) that is to be held from 11 to 17 November has decided to felicitate five Bengal actresses who have adorned the Hindi film scene. The event will be the attraction on the closing day. "The idea is to award Panch Kanya (five women) from Bengal who have done well at the national level in Bollywood," KIFF director Jadav Mondal said in a statement. The actresses are Moushumi Chatterjee, Sushmita Sen, Rani Mukherji, Bipasha Basu and Konkona Sen Sharma. Though the organisers of the state government-run film festival have already acquired confirmation from Moushumi, Sushmita and Bipasha, those from Rani and Konkona are awaited. As is well known the inaugural session of the KIFF will be held at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in the presence of film luminaries like Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Mithun Chakraborty and Shah Rukh Khan. Later on 14 November, the festival will see the presence of Sharmila Tagore and directors Madhur Bhandarkar and Shoojit Sircar. The inaugural film of the festival would be late filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh's unreleased film Taak Jhaank (Sunglass). And to pay tribute to the director who passed away a few months ago, eight of his films including Unishe April, Dahan, The Last Lear and Chitrangada will also be screened. Altogether 189 films will be screened in the eight-day-long film carnival at 13 venues including the Nandan-Rabindra Sadan complex, Inox City Centre 1 and Star Theatre among others. Also present would be 24 delegates from abroad that would be led by Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai who will also hold a master class for film students. A new addition to this year's KIFF is the 'Shades of Black and White' as part of which contemporary black and white films will be shown.