Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Hyderabad Bengali Film Festival (HBFF) is back this year with a specially-curated list of films ranging across languages and genres. While the festival had Telugu as a guest language last year, this time around, the five-member committee has included Marathi to the list. The highlight, however, is ‘Return to Classics’, a section dedicated to renowned filmmaker Tarun Majumdar who is celebrating 60 years in the film industry. To commemorate his era, the committee is screening two of his notable works — Nimantran and Alo — which will later be discussed by Tarun himself.
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The three-day annual event offers a platform for multi-ethnic and cultural exchange between people from Telangana, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Although Bengali films will be the primary focus, HBFF will also screen films from the two guest languages — Arjun Reddy (Telugu) and Aaron (Marathi). Partha Pratim Mallik, the Director of HBFF and the General Secretary of the Bengali community in Hyderabad, says that the aim is to use cinema is to treat Hyderabad-settled Bengalis with movies from their hometown. “While we had just eight films last year, we have widened our horizon, in terms of languages and number of films, by increasing the list to 15 movies this year,” he adds. Started in 2014, the founding committee includes Oindrila Mallik Basu, Mithun Ranjit, Avishek Das, Rahul Basu and Debabrata Dey.
Apart from the screening of feature films, the festival also has an exhibition, Feluda Adventures, based on the Feluda world (a fictional Bengali private investigator) created by Satyajit Ray. “Feluda is a character loved by most Bengalis. What better to celebrate Bengali cinema and art together than an exhibition featuring the same character,” shares Pratha. Curated by filmmaker Sandip Ray, the exhibition will showcase more than 30 exhibits of Satyajit Ray’s handwritten manuscripts and sketches. The event will also have food stalls offering cuisines from both the states – West Bengal and Telangana.
Notable guets:
Rituparna Sengupta
Swastika Mukherjee
Mumtaz Sorcar
Gargi Roy Chowdhuri
9 am onwards. At Prasad Film Labs, Banjara Hills.