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“In Ritwik Ghatak, determination was a dependable successful cinema that wanted to code the governmental mayhem of the Bengal partition,” said actor-director Parambrata Chakraborty astatine a tribute for Bengali auteur Ritwik Ghatak astatine a centenary memorial speech hosted by the 31st Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) connected Tuesday (November 11, 2025).
With a seminar, an exhibition, a conversation, the 31st KIFF is paying its tribute to 1 of the top Bengali filmmakers of each time, Ritwik Ghatak, arsenic portion of his centenary celebrations successful 2025.
On Tuesday (November 11), a wide assemblage astatine Sisir Mancha, adjoining the West Bengal Film Centre successful Kolkata’s Nandan, witnessed a sheet treatment connected ‘Ritwik Ghatak Centenary and Beyond’ by renowned movie personalities similar Mr. Chattopadhyay, who is besides Ghatak’s grandchild, filmmakers Supriyo Sen and Ashoke Vishwanathan, and erstwhile director-in-charge of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute Amaresh Chakrabarti. The league was being moderated by filmmaker Sekhar Das.
“What struck maine erstwhile I was successful my teens, astatine an property erstwhile I started becoming much alert of the past of the subcontinent, is that the cinema of the 50s and 60s successful Bengal had nary signs of the Partition. That was conscionable a fewer decades since 1 of the largest quality displacements successful modern history… [Ghatak] was the 1 who proved determination wasn’t a implicit denial of what we had gone done arsenic a race,” Mr. Chattopadhyay said.
He said that the memories and past of the Partition should beryllium passed connected to aboriginal generations done Ghatak’s films and that his filmography had ‘sensitised’ Mr. Chattopadhyay to his ain Bengali identity.
Ritwik Ghatak, who was considered portion of the ‘great trinity’ of Bengali cinema alongside Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen, was known champion for iconic films that depicted the symptom of displacement and societal catastrophes during the Bengal partition, similar Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) and Subarnarekha (1965). He was besides a prof of movie absorption and, briefly, vice-principal, astatine the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), mentoring students similar Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani and Adoor Gopalakrishnan who went to go well-known filmmakers successful their ain right.
“My transportation with Ghatak is done the memories of Partition. On 1 hand, determination was the romanticist nostalgia of the landscapes near behind, connected the different hand, it was a clip of unit and bloodshed. I person not recovered the stories of our massive, displaced assemblage anyplace other successful cinema but successful Ritwik Ghatak’s films,” Mr. Sen said, during the centenary speech connected Tuesday (November 11).
Filmmaker and professional Mr. Vishwanathan, besides an alumnus of FTII, highlighted Ghatak’s departure from the styles of Hollywood and neo-realism and said the auteur did not transportation the load of influences, but alternatively paved his ain way with his cinematography, dependable design, music, and editing.
“Ghatak is the lone filmmaker successful India who did not person pre-determined cinematic influences… [Like successful his movie Jukti Takko Aar Gappo,] helium had dispensed with the alleged narrative. There are communicative patches, but adjacent those volition permission you dissatisfied if you’re looking for immoderate semblance of a story… He doesn’t travel the dictums that Hollywood has travel up with. He provides, similar [Japanese filmmaker Kenzi Mizoguchi], an alternate strategy of filmmaking,” Mr. Vishwanathan said during the sheet treatment connected Tuesday (November 11).
He highlighted that the auteur precise prominently represented Dalit nine and individuality successful his films.
Former director-in-charge of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Amaresh Chakrabarti, recalled Ghatak’s relation with the Indian People Theatre’s Association and the Communist Party of India astatine the time, arsenic good arsenic Ghatak’s world effort titled ‘On the Cultural Front’ successful 1954 connected what the party’s taste stance should be.
“If we revisit the effort we volition spot that Ghatak had said adjacent then, that theatre cannot beryllium successful an insular situation based connected the exclusion of things termed bourgeoisie, and that theatre demands open-mindedness. [He had proposed] examining culture, being unfastened to moving connected Indian epics similar Ramayana and Mahabharata. These ideas were not good received astatine the time,” helium said.
As portion of the centenary tribute, the 31st KIFF organised screenings of six of Ghatak’s films during the festival betwixt November 6 and November 13, on with an accumulation of his memorabilia astatine Nandan, the sheet treatment today, and the Ritwik Ghatak Memorial Conversation betwixt filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Anup Singh, scheduled for November 12.
