Kolkata, Sept. 8 -- At a time when a Bengali has made the state proud by winning at the Venice Film Festival, a three-day European Film Festival kicked off in Kolkata on Monday, bringing a bouquet of contemporary European cinema to local audiences.
Organised by the Forum for Film Studies & Allied Arts in collaboration with NEZ Foundation, the festival is being held at Satyajit Ray Auditorium, ICCR, Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani. It will run till September
10 with three shows daily. Ten acclaimed films from across Europe are being showcased, each exploring diverse themes of identity, freedom, relationships and social conflict. Among them is Cerdita (Spain, 2022), directed by Carlota Pereda, which tells the story of Sara, a bullied teenager who is pushed into a spiral of violence after a traumatic incident at a swimming pool. Latvia's Ectasis (2023) by Dž. Dž. Džilindžers examines fragile human bonds through the troubled love life of a bohemian photographer, while Kaymak (North Macedonia, 2022) by Milcho Manchevski interweaves the fates of two couples in Skopje, tackling themes of family, surrogacy and survival.
Claire Denis' The Star at Noon (Panama/USA, 2022), set against political unrest in Nicaragua, follows a journalist entangled with a mysterious Englishman in a tale of intrigue and survival. Meanwhile, Alexandru Belc's Metronom (Romania/France, 2022) paints a powerful picture of youth caught in the paranoia of communist dictatorship.
From Greece comes A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On (2022) by Gentian Koci, which sensitively portrays the life of identical deaf twins confronting loss and mortality. Other notable entries include BabyGirl (Netherlands/USA, 2024), a tale of desire and forbidden love; Para:dies (Austria, 2022), which examines love and longing in rural Salzburg; and Borders of Love (Czech Republic, 2022), probing the complexities of open relationships.
The festival's timing is significant, coinciding with global recognition for Bengal-born debut filmmaker Anuparna Roy. Her Songs of Forgotten Trees won her the Best Director Award at the 82nd Venice Film Festival's Orizzonti section, where it competed against 18 feature films.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.