Only a day ago, the organizing committee had announced that the 27th edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival will go on but with 50% capacity in cinema halls and a virtual inauguration ceremony. This year’s KIFF was supposed to start on January 7. However, due to the current surge in COVID-19 cases across Bengal, especially in Kolkata, the festival has been postponed temporarily.
The decision was announced by the West Bengal government through a statement. A number of Tollywood personalities attached to the organizing committee have tested positive over the past few days and the COVID-19 situation in Bengal is in quite an alarming state right now.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was to virtually inaugurate the film festival on January 7.
A day before, the state government had said the festival would be held in a scaled down manner at 10 venues across the city allowing cine-lovers to watch movies but subject to half the setas being kept empty.
A total of 161 films, including 46 from 41 foreign countries, were slated to be screened in 200 shows on the eight days of the film festival, Minister of State for Culture Indranil Sen had said on Tuesday.
Finland was to have been the focus country of KIFF this year with six works of contemporary Finnish directors slated to be screened.
The foreign films shortlisted to be shown included movies from Iran and Italy besides Finland, Sen had said.
The 161 films which were to be shown included 103 feature films and 58 short and documentary films.
The inaugural film would have been Satyajit Ray’s classic Aranyer Din Ratri.
A KIFF official said whenever the festival takes place, at a conducive time, the package and the schedule, would remain unchanged.
Raj Chakraborty, had tweeted on January 4 that he and actor wife Subhasree Ganguly had tested Covid-19 positive. Parambrata Chatterjee too had tweeted “had mild symptoms in Mumbai on the 27th, but had tested negative. Returned to Kolkata on the 30th. Became completely symptom-free by 2nd, but got a routine test done … (test results are ) positive.”
