“The Song of Life” to open Kolkata Film Festival

PanARMENIAN.Net - Abhijit Guha and Sudeshna Roy’s Bengali-language “The Song of Life” (“Beche thakar gaan”) will open the 22nd edition of the Kolkata international film festival, Variety reports.

Kolkata is home to India’s largest Chinese population and this year the country in focus is China. Films screening as part of the focus include Peter Chan’s “American Dreams in China,” Diao Yinan’s “Black Coal, Thin Ice,” Raman Hui’s “Monster Hunt,” Dante Lam’s “To the Fore,” Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Wolf Totem,”, Jianqi Huo’s “Xuan Zang” and Han Yan’s “Go Away Mr Tumour”.

The festival has an international competition for films directed by women, the jury for which is headed by Belgian director-producer Marion Hansel. The festival also has an international competition for Innovations in Moving Images. The jury is headed by Israeli filmmaker Dan Wolman (“From Israel with Love”).

Films across Asia will compete for the NETPAC award, the jury for which is headed by Tajikistan filmmaker Sharofat Arabova (“Tasfiya”).

In addition there is a sidebar devoted to French filmmaker Catherine Corsini (“Summertime”) and homage to Japanese master Kenji Misoguchi.

The festival runs Nov. 11-18.