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The Fifth Kalpanirjhar Festival of Short Fiction Films organized by Kalpanirjhar Foundation, Kolkata, and Goethe Institute / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata, co-sponsored by Patton, in association with Alliance Francaise du Bengale, at Max Mueller Bhavan, Kolkata on 7 – 11 December 2007, was inaugurated by eminent filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh, with Mrinal Sen as Guest of Honour, and Robin Mallick, Director, Dresden Film Festival, and Michael Greif, representing Ecomove International, Hamburg, as Distinguished Guests. Guests and speakers on stage also included Dr Reimar Volker, Director, Geothe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata; Christian Chatton, Director, Alliance Francaise du Bengale, Goutam Ghose, Chairman, Kalpanirjhar Foundation, and Samik Bandyopadhyay, Trustee, Kalpanirjhar Foundation. S V Raman was Master of Ceremonies.
Arindam Chatterjee, writing in the Hindusthan Times, dated 13 December 2007, said : ‘Ideas, Content, Style. The fifth edition of the Kalpanirjhar Short Fiction Film Festival 2007 had it all.’ The highlights of the Festival this year included an international selection curated by Robin Mallick, Director, Dresden Film Festival; Awardwinners at the Capalbio Festival, one of the world’s best known short film festivals; Voyages en courts, a selection of French short films chosen by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, several of them shot outside France.
Germany was represented by a strikingly original retrospective of films by German director Veit Helmer (b. 1968) and the Hamburg Media School Selections; and France by a package of animation graphics from SupInfocom, Arles and Valenciennes. Following on the regional focuses in earlier years on Mexico and Poland, this year there was a representative body of work from the Basque region of Spain. A fresh selection of recent awardwinners from Prix Jeunesse International 2006 evoked memories of an earlier Prix Jeunesse selection at Kalpanirjhar 2005, which was the Festival’s hit that year.
An innovation this year was the Patton Award for the best Indian film of the year that went to Biswas Nao Kortey Paren (You May Not Believe It) directed by Pradipta Bhattacharya, and produced by Tara Music. The special Jury appointed for the purpose appreciated ‘the originality of the open narrative structure and crisp dialogues of this film growing out of life in Kolkata.’ The award included a citation, an award plaque and a cheque of Rs 20,000, contributed by Patton India Private Limited.
The Festival featured 108 films in all from the following countries : Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Poland, France, Czech Republic, The UK, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, Spain, Venezuela, Bhutan, Denmark, Egypt, Ireland, Belgium, Australia, Italy, Canada and India. Commenting on the Festival, Robin Mallick told Hindusthan Times, ‘For Kalpanirjhar, I have tried to present films straddling divergent genres. It was imperative that the festival offered films high on content… As I had attended the first edition of Kalpanirjhar, I was aware that Kolkata has an erudite audience.’ All the sessions of the Festival had full houses. |
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