The 2025 edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), starting November 6, will open with the eternal Uttam Kumar–Suchitra Sen romantic classic Saptapadi (1961), minister Aroop Biswas announced at a press conference on Tuesday at Rabindra Sadan. Marking 50 glorious years of Sholay, director Ramesh Sippy will be in Kolkata to deliver this year’s Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture, one of KIFF’s most-awaited and prestigious sessions.
Jana Aranya (The Middleman) inarguably the bleakest of Satyajit Ray’s films is five decades young. Looking back on its turning 50 the director shows he was in pace with the prevailing times as his anguish bursts into almost every frame.
The demolition of iconic filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s ancestral home in Mymensingh, Bangladesh, has been paused following protests from India and cultural advocates.
A deceptively simple tale of four city bred youth leaving behind the concrete jungle and slumming with a vengeance amidst the forests of Palamau in what was then Bihar turned out to be one of the finest films directed by Satyajit Ray -Aranyer Din Ratri. When it was released 56 years ago, people made a beeline for the theatres in Kolkata, while critics were almost at a loss for words in its praise.
