Community Durga Puja Themed On 102 Years Of Bengali Cinema

A community Durga Puja in the city has been themed on 102 years of Bengali cinema. Organisers of the Bhawanipore Sammilani community puja in south Kolkata have put up posters and stills of over 100 Bengali movies, from the 1950s era to contemporary times, at their marquee. "As part of our theme based on the history of over 100 years of Bengali cinema, we have displayed posters and stills from popular and critically-acclaimed films over the past five decades, on the path leading to the marquee," puja committee joint secretary Kaushik Dutta told PTI.

The posters have been set up on both sides of the lane next to the Ashutosh Mukherjee College, leading up to the marquee that has been shaped like a film projector.

The stills and posters include those of Bengali movies Pather Panchali, Apur Sansar, Subarnarekha, Meghe Dhaka Tara, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Sonar Kella, Akalaer Sandhane, Jai Baba Felunath, Gotro, Bela Sheshe, Chotuskone and Jatishwar.

A photo gallery on Bengali directors Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Tapan Sinha, Bimal Roy, Srijit Mukherji and Kaushik Ganguly have decked up the exterior of the marquee.

Giant "Nagra" shoe replicas, resembling those worn by the main characters in Satyajit Ray's iconic movie, 'Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne', have also been put up on the top of the marquee.

"We want to make the young generation aware of the rich heritage of Bengali cinema," Dutta said.

He said the theme's creator Indranil Ghosh had collected materials from the studios in Tollygunge area over the past three to four months to materialise the concept.

"The Artists' Forum also provided us with research materials," he added.

'Satyawadi Raja Harishchandra', directed by Rustomji Dhotiwala, was the first Bengali feature film screened in a tent at Kolkata Maidan on March 24, 1917 filmmaker Goutam Ghose had told PTI earlier.