# 24th Kolkata International Film Festival

The 24th Kolkata International Film Festival took place from 10 Nov 2018 – 17 Nov 2018. Celebrating 100 Years of Bengali cinema, Around 171 films and 150 short and documentary films from 70 countries was screened at the festival.

## Inauguration

24th Edition of Kolkata International Film Festival was inaugurated at Netaji Indoor Stadium by West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.
Apart from the entire Bengali film industry, Bollywood stalwart Amitabh Bachchan, who has been a regular in the inaugural function of KIFF for the last few years, was also invited this year, along with Shahrukh Khan. Along with them, other nationally famed film personas like Jaya Bachchan, Wahida Rehman, Nandita Das, Mahesh Bhatt were also present.

## Themes & Highlights

The highlight of the festival this year was 100 years of Bengali cinema – fourteen restored Bengali classics and a few contemporary regional language films was screened at Nandan and Rabindra Sadan. The special focus of KIFF this year was on Australia and Tunisia films. Selected contemporary and iconic Australian and Tunisian movies was also screened, along with three retrospective series with films by Majid Majidi, Phillip Noyce and Bimal Roy. Änother category "Unheard India" was showcase eight lesser-known Indian language films from across the country – Sinjar (Jasari), Saakibaayi (Banjaara), Kittath Preeti, Boldu, Navleri, Death Certificate (Bengali), Nabon (Khasi) and Nana A Tale Of Us.
‘Antony Firingee’ starred by Uttam Kumar was chosen as the inaugural movie of the festival . A special theatre play named ‘Hirala Bioscope’ was staged on 13 November. It is based on Hiralal Sen, who is considered to be one of the country's first filmmakers.

## Official Selections
### Competition Categories
#### Asian Select (NETPAC Award)

| Title | Director | Notes |
| Manta Ray | Phuttiphong Aroonpheng | |
| Amra And The Second Marriage | Mahmoud Sabbagh | |
| Abraham | Konarak Mukherjee | |
| The Sweet Requiem | Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam | NETPAC Award for Best Film |
| Saga Of A Nobody | Soumendu Bhattacherya | |
| House of My Fathers | Suba Sivakumaran | |

#### International Competition: Innovation in Moving Images

| Title | Original Title | Director | Country | Notes |
| Unicorn | Unicornio | Eduardo Nunes | | |
| Judgement Day | Yomeddine | Abu Bakr Shawky | Egypt | Golden Royal Bengal Tiger for Best Director |
| She | Olu | SHAJI N KARUN | India | |
| Endless | - | Maryam Zahirimehr | Iran | |
| The He Without Him | Runanubandha | Amartya Bhattacharyya | India | |
| A Timeline | Tarikh | Churni Ganguly | India | Jury Special Mention |
| Black Mexicans | La Negrada | Jorge Perez Solano | | |
| Sibel | | Guillaume Giovanetti, Cagla Zencirci | | |
| The Third Wife | | Ash Mayfair | | Golden Royal Bengal Tiger Award for Best Film |
| Persons of Interest | | RALSTON GONZALES JOVER | | |
| Genesis | Genezis | Arpad Bogdan | | |
| I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians | | Radu Jude | | |
| Strangers Of Patience | STRANNIKI TERPENIYA | Vladimir Alenikov | | |
| The Widowed Witch | | CAI Chengjie | | |
| FORNACIS | | Aurelia Mengin | | |

#### Competition on Indian Language's Films

| Title | Director | Notes |
| Sun Goes Around The Earth | Arijit Biswas | Best Director |
| Pixelia | Ratheesh Ravindran | |
| Half Songs | Sriram Raja | |
| Certain Lives In Twilight | Praveen Sukumaran | |
| Kedara | Indraadip Dasgupta | Special Mention Jury |
| Vartak Nagar | Atul Taishete | |
| Nirmal Enroute | Rishi Deshpande | |
| Obyakto | Arjun Dutta | |
| KANTHAN THE LOVER OF COLOUR | SHAREEF EASA | |
| Widow of Silence | Praveen Morchhale | Hiralal Sen Memorial Award' for Best Film |
| Mishing | Bobby Sarma Baruah | |
| In a Land far away | Joshy Mathew | |
| Hiralal | Arun Roy | |

#### Competition on Indian Documentary Films

| Title | Director | Notes |
| SAY CHEESE | Ishani Kanjilal Dutta | Best Documentary |
| TIDES OF LIFE | Suhel Banerjee | |
| MELTING ICE | Devanshi asher | |
| SWORD OF LIBERTY | Shiny Jacob Benjamin | |
| PONY TALE | Alexander Leo Pou | |
| LADLI | Suipta Kundu | |
| MEMOIRS OF SAIRA & SALIM | Eshwarya Grover | |
| AN ORIGINAL CLOUD IN THE MOUNTAINS | Jill Mistry | |
| PROTULBABU | Debasish Ghoshal | |
| THE MONKS WHO WON A GRAMMY | Aparna Sanyal | |
| THE JUNGLE MAN LOIYA | Farha Khatun | |
| JIBANPUR STATION | Ravi R | |

### Non-Competition Categories
#### 100 Years of Bengali Cinema

| Title | Director |
| UDAYER PATHE | Bimal Roy |
| MUKTI | Pramathesh Barua |
| UTTAR FALGUNI | Asit Sen |
| CHOKH | Utpalendu Chakrabarty |
| STREER PATRA | Purnendu Pattrea |
| SAPTAPDI | Ajoy Kar |
| PADMA NADIR MAJHI | Goutam Ghose |
| KONI | Saroj Dey |
| KABULIWALA | Tapan Sinha |
| GANGA | Rajen Tarafdar |
| GANADEBATA | Tarun Majumdar |
| UNISHE APRIL | Rituparno Ghosh |
| ALIBABA | Madhu Bose |

#### Bengali Panorama

| Title | Director |
| Asukhwala - The Pain Hawker | Palash Dey |
| Watchmaker | Anindya Banerjee |
| Iye - The Others | Debesh Chatterjee |
| Bisorgo | Arunava Khasnobis |
| Andarkahini | Arnab K Middya |

#### Cinema International

| Title | Director | Country |
| At war | Stephane Brize | France |
| Birds Of Passage | Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra | Colombia |
| The River | Emir Baigazin | Kazakhstan |
| Border | Ali Abbasi | Sweden |
| Working Woman | Michal Aviad | Israel |
| Black Hole | Diego Araujo | Ecuador |
| Like Cat And Dog | Janusz Kondratiuk | Poland |
| A Land Imagined | Siew Hua Yeo | Singapore |
| The Man who killed Don Quixote | Terry Gilliam | United Kingdom |
| Knife+Heart | Yann Gonzalez | France |
| Cobain (film) | Nanouk Leopold | Netherlands |
| The Reports on Sarah and Saleem | Muayad Alayan | Palestine |
| Retablo | Alvaro Delgado Aparicio | Peru |
| Rafiki | Wanuri Kahiu | Kenya |
| Lemonade | Ioana Uricaru | |
| The Snatch Thief | Agustin Toscano | Argentina |
| The Happy Prince | Rupert Everett | United Kingdom |
| Les Salopes, or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin | Renee Beaulieu | Canada |
| White Chamber | Paul Raschid | United Kingdom |
| Homeland | Anindya Chatterjee | India |
| Touch Me Not | Adina Pintilie | Romania |
| Animal | Armando Bo | Argentina |
| Sew the Winter to My Skin | Jahmil X.T. Qubeka | South Africa |
| Girls Of The Sun | Eva Husson | France |
| Jumpman | Ivan I. Tverdovsky | |
| Breath Of Life | David Roux | United States |
| Ballon | Michael Herbig | Germany |
| Treat Me Like Fire | Marie Monge | France |
| Sunset | Laszlo Nemes | Hungary |
| Trote | Xacio Bano | Spain |
| A Twelve-year Night | Alvaro Brechner | Uruguay |
| Savage | Vincent Mariette | |
| Capernaum | Nadine Labaki | Lebanon |
| QUIEN TE CANTARA | Carlos Vermut | |
| Daughter Of Mine | Laura Bispuri | Italy |
| STRIPPED | YARON SHANI | |
| GENIZAS | Juan Sebastian Jacome | |

#### Documentary Films

| Title | Director |
| LAASYAM | Vinod Mankara |
| Shuhaib The Immortal Fighter Of Kannur Killing Field | pt chacko |
| Kali | Subrata Sen |
| CAL-KATA KOL-CUTTA | Hannah Mitchell, Alan De Oliveira |
| LADAKH CHALE RICKSHAWALA | Indrani Chakraborty |
| IN HIS INNER VOICE : KULDIP NAYAR | Meera Dewan |
| THE SLAVE GENESIS | Aneez K M |
| WB KHADI & VI BOARD A SUSTAINABLE JOURNEY | Susanta Biswas |
| CHASING DREAMS | Vaishali Kendale |
| FINDING PRAYERS | Nilay Samiran Nandi |
| ATASI | Putul Mahmood |
| THE LAST KNELL | KAKALI CHAKRABARTY |
| AN ENGINEERED DREAM | HEMANT KUMAR GABA |
| GULDAR | Kumar Shivam |
| NURSERY OF HOCKEY-SIMDEGA | Nikhil Sharda |
| SMART CITY BLUES | Debarun Dutta |
| THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH LIGHTS | SHOUNAK MAJUMDAR |
| INCLUSIVE EYES | Devender Dahima |
| DUSK WITH DUST | Aashish Katiyan |
| IN THUNDER LIGHTNING AND RAIN | Rajesh James |
| ECHO FROM THE PUKPUI SKIES | Joshy Joseph |
| GODDESS IN THE MOSQUE | Priyashanker Ghosh |
| CHANDUA - A UNIQUE HERITAGE | KRISHNA BASU |
| MOTHERS WITH IRON HEARTS | Sanjiban Nath |
| AN ICONIC GENIUS | Sougata Bhattacharyya |
| The Granite Clad Neva | Igor Gankin |
| ABARTAN | Santanu Halder |
| 05.05.2015 | Arthur Yakubov |
| IN THE MEMORY OF THE MASTER | Jyotirmay Deb |
| BANARAS PINK | PEARL SANDHU |
| A JOURNEY OF PASSION | Bijaya Kumar Nishanka |
| The Island | Adam Weingrod |
| The King | Aleksander Krzystyniak |
| Eastern Memories | Niklas Kullstrom, Martti Kaartinen |
| Myth | Leonid Kanter and Ivan Yasniy |
| Tale Of A Fair | Ujjal Paul |
| RANGABHOOMI BHALOBASHI | SANTANU SAHA |
| The Mountain Of Law | Surya Shankar Dash |
| BHAURAO DATAR - A CURTAIN CALL | Bharat Yashwant Kanhere |
| Scorched | Akshay Gouri |
| TOMARI MATIR KONNYA | Sekhar Das |
| DREAMS ON WHEELS | VEDIKA KRUTI |
| AND THEY MADE CLASSICS | Ratnottama Sengupta |
| NEMAI GHOSH - A RAY OF LIGHT | Anirban Mitra, Tirtha Dasgupta |

#### Children's Screening

| Title | Director |
| Adventures Kids | N.M.Joshi |
| The Great Indian Road Movie | Sohan Lal |
| Maassab | Aditya Om |
| Supa Modo | Likarion Wainaina |

#### Contemporary Australian Cinema

| Title | Director |
| Peter Rabbit | Will Gluck |
| 1 Percent | Stephen McCallum |
| Swinging Safari | Stephan Elliott |
| Mary Magdalene | Garth Davis |
| Jirga | Benjamin Gilmour |
| Breath | Simon Baker |
| Dancing The Invisible | Axel Grigor |
| Ali's Wedding | Jeffrey Walker |

#### Iconic Australian Cinema

| Title | Director |
| THE STORY OF THE KELLY GANG | Charles Tait |
| THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE | Raymond Longford |
| THE DRESSMAKER | Jocelyn Moorhouse |
| BLESSED | Ana Kokkinos |
| CLAY | Giorgio Mangiamele |
| FORTY THOUSAND HORSEMEN | Charles Chauvel |
| MALCOLM | Nadia Tass |
| PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK | Peter Weir |
| PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT | Stephan Elliott |
| ROMPER STOMPER | Geoffrey Wright |
| TEN CANOES | Rolf de Heer |

#### Great Master: Bimal Roy

| Title | Director |
| PEHLA AADMI | Bimal Roy |
| MAA | Bimal Roy |
| YAHUDI | Bimal Roy |
| DO BIGHA ZAMIN | Bimal Roy |
| SUJATA | Bimal Roy |

#### Homage: Supriya Devi

| Title | Director | Notes |
| MEGHE DHAKA TARA | Ritwik Ghatak | |

#### Centenary Tribute: Ernst Ingmar Bergman

| Title | Yann Gonzalez |
| Winter Light | Ingmar Bergman |
| Wild Strawberries | Ingmar Bergman |
| Through A Glass Darkly | Ingmar Bergman |
| The Seventh Seal | Ingmar Bergman |
| Persona | Ingmar Bergman |
| Fanny And Alexander | Ingmar Bergman |
| Cries And Whispers | Ingmar Bergman |
| Bergman Island | Marie Nyrerod |