Bengali Film Festival in the Bay Area

For those of us who do not travel very frequently to Kolkata, or have too many social commitments while we are in India to catch up wih a lot of performing arts events, it has been a real challenge to keep up with the cultural scene on our short trips home. Many community members have expressed a desire to see more Bangla films in the Bay Area. In response, Johlsha ("Jalsa" non-phonetically) will be organizing a festival of Bangla films during the weekend of February 26 and February 27. The films will be screened at IMC 6 Theaters in San Jose.

This is the first festival that Johlsha is organizing with plans to organize regular showings of both Bangla classics as well as new films if the community support warrants it. So we appeal to all Bengalis to please come and enjoy the films. Profits from the screenings will be donated to the new Bengali Studies Initiative at the University of California in an effort to promote our heritage, literaure and language within mainstream academia.

Donor ticket holders ($100) to the Bengali Film festival at the IMC6 will be shown director Sandip Ray's Baksho Rahasya. Bakasho Rahasya is Satyajit Ray's famous Feluda thriller, the cinematic precursor to Bengali block buster Bombayer Bombete.

This is an exciting opportunity for Bengalis to view some of the contemporary films from Kolkata. The selection of films covers a wide spectrum from Drama to Comedy, and Kolkata's first Science Fiction film. All the films have had good reviews in Kolkata.

Event Details:

Dates: Saturday Febraury 26 and Sunday February 27

Venue: IMC 6 (India Movie Center 6), 1433 The Alameda, San Jose CA 95126. IMC6 is easily accesible from Freeway 880 with plenty of free parking.

Tickets: To purchase tickets, please visit the IMC 6 Website. $10 per film screening for open seating.

Donor tickets: $100. Includes admission to all six films as well as to a special screening of Bhanu Banerjee documentary and Sandip Ray's Baksho Rahasya, based on Satyajit Ray's famous Feluda thrillers, at the Lake Ridge Athletic Club, El Sobrante on Sunday March 6, 2005. See below.

All children require tickets. Even children in arms.

Screenings:

Saturday, February 26, 2005:

12 noon: Alo - Directed Tarun Majumdar, Starring Rituparna Sen Gupta. Features very good Rabindra Sangeet.

3 pm: Tin Ekka Tin - A Comedy by Moloy Bhattacharya (Koneenica)

6 pm: Patalghar - Bengali Science Fiction, should be popular with the younger crowd; by Abhjeet Chaudhuri (Soumitra Chatterjee, Biplab Chatterjee, Joy Sengupta, Mita Vasisht, and others)

Sunday, February 27, 2005:

12 noon: Desh - Directed by Raja Sen (Jaya Bachchan Sabyasachi, Subhendu Chatterji and Abhishek Bachchan in a guest appearance)

3 pm: Bhalo Theko - Directed by Gautam Haldar (Soumitra Chatterjee, Vidya Balan, Debsankar Halder, Joy Sengupta, Anushua Majumar, et al)

6 pm: Tak Jhal Mishti - A Comedy by Basu Chatterjee

 

March 6: For $100 Donors Only

5 pm: Special screening for donor ticket holders of $100 event ticket:

Documentary on the life of Bhanu Banerjee and Sandip Ray's Baksho Rahasya at

Lakeridge Athletic Club
6350 San Pablo Dam Road
El Sobrante, CA 94803
Phone: (510) 222-2500

Please contact Nandini Pal at nandiny@aol.com for any additional information.
Also, for tickets please visit the IMC 6 website at <http://www.imc6.com>.

 

About the Films

Alo
(No Subtitles)

Directed by Tarun Majumdar; Based on a novel “Kinnardal” by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. Cast: Abhishek Chatterjee, Bharati Devi, Kunal Mitra, Rituparna Sengupta

From the maker of Dadar Kirti, “Alo” is a sensitive film about a city girl who travels leaves the life she knows to fulfill the last wish of her mother-in-law. Tarun Majumdar’s able direction is set off brilliantly by the presentation of Tagore’s songs by music directors Shibaji and Arundhati Chatterjee. Rituparna Sengupta who also produces the film has given a brilliant performance and looks ravishing.

Tin Ekke Tin

Directed by Moloy Bhattacharya; Cast: Koneenica Banerjee, Srilekha Mitra, Nilanjana Bhaumik, Saswata, Kushal Chakroborty, Badsha Moitra, Tapas Pal, Poran Bondopadhyay

Director Moloy Bhattacharya takes a break from serious film to make this light-hearted comedy. Three friends Maya, Mukti and Alo decide to start a business for which they need to raise money. Faced with refusals from all directions these three come up with a plan to rob a bank! This is the debut film for Koneenica Banerjee, slated to be the next superstar in Tollygunge.

Patalghar

Directed by Abhjeet Chaudhuri

Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Biplab Chatterjee, Joy Sengupta, Mita Vasisht

Based on Shirshendu Mukhopadhaya’s short story, Patalghar creates a new genre of Bengali films. Patalghar crusies between the past, the present and the future. An eccentric scientist Aghor Sen creates a magic instrument which puts Vik, an exile from planet Nyapcha to sleep. After 150 years, Aghor Sen’s diary is discovered and an all-out race to find the device ensues between a bunch of good and evil characters and also the freshly awakened Vik. What follows is plenty of special effects, technological gadets, futuristic ideas, and villains vanquished by good guys.

Desh

Directed by Raja Sen

Cast: Jaya Bachchan, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Subhendu Chatterjee, Pradeep Chakraborty, Kaushik Sen, Nayana Das, Abhishek Bachchan (guest appearance)

Based on “Astra” by Prafulla Ray, Desh (Motherland) is the story of a sudden and stark revelation of the
present activities of the separatist activities in our country. Suprava Devi (Jaya Bachchan) runs an organization for destitute and needy women. A militant revolutionary from the tender age of just 14, the film captures her feelings of anguish on seeing the degeneration around her. She invites the ire of antisocial elements when she makes rescues a girl (Nayana Das) in trouble. Along with a young journalist (Sabyasachi Chakroborty), she strives to unravel the mystery surrounding the girl.

Bhalo Theko

Directed by Gautam Halder

Cast: Vidya Balan, Soumitra Chatterjee, Debshankar Halder, Joy Sengupta

Anandi (Vidya Balan), a young maiden and her old Bengali aristocratic family live in their big ancestral home on the river away from the bustles of the nearby big city. On her 32nd birthday, the ringing of the telephone wakes up Anandi from her nightmare of a childhood trauma of being lost in the village fair. She then joins her friends and family in planting a tree in the garden which has over the years become a part of the rituals to celebrate her birthday. As the day progresses, the story of the metamorphosis of the family into its present state unfolds. Anandi, the protagonist of this eternal love story between people and Nature, moves back and forth in time between her childhood and her 32nd birthday, and creates a mosaic of somewhat fragmented pieces of memory. Bhalo Theko is
Gautam's debut feature film. His first docu-feature A Story of Integration earned him the National Award in 1993. His second film Strings of Freedom on Ustad Amjad Ali Khan was highly appreciated at international film festivals.
Gautam, himself a singer, is now working on another documentary on Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty.

Tak Jhaal Mishti

Directed by Basu Chatterjee

Cast: Priyanka Trivedi, Firdous, Arjun Chakraborty, Ramaprasad Banik, Sonali Chakraborty, Mousumi Saba, Kharaj Mukhopadhyay and others

In the same style of his earlier films such as Golmal and Rajnigandha, Basu Cahterjee’s Tok Jhal Mishti aims to please and entertain with his typical clean family fun. Corporate executive Dilip (Arjun Chakraborty) lives with his fashionable wife Renu (Sonali Chakraborty) and girl child. Their next-door neighbor is a smalltime clerk Mukunda
(Ramaprasad Banik) with a nagging wife Basanti (Mousumi Saha). Deepa (Priyanka Trivedi) moves in to the apartment and both Dilip and Mukunda get infatuated with her much to the dismay of the two wives.