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Kolkata to host Asia's largest photo festival

Repertoires of the world's greatest masters – many of which have never been shown before – while others have remained solitary in the vaults of private collectors are all set to enthrall India in Asia's largest photo festival taking place in Kolkata.

The first Kolkata International Photo Festival 2019 – Asia's largest – will be held from February 28. It will be announced at India's most iconic venue – the Victoria Memorial on December 11 where the festival directors will reveal some of the incredible collections sourced from across India and the world, many of which are held by private collectors and some of the country's most revered families.

The press conference on December 11 to announce the event will be addressed by Madhuchhanda Sen and Kounteya Sinha (Festival Directors), Jayanta Sengupta (Director Victoria Memorial), Jogen Choudhury (World renowned artist), Gautam De (Director General, ICCR) and Nemai Ghosh (Iconic photographer).

The festival has two of the art world's formidable giants as directors – Madhuchhanda Sen, founder of the iconic Maya Art Space and Kounteya Sinha – a world-renowned photographer who is referred as the modern master of visual story-telling by critics.

Shows will take place in almost all of the city's top institutions and venues including galleries.

The festival will not just see repertoires of the world's greatest artists but will also have some of the biggest names from the world of photography come into the city to interact and mentor a giant pool of the city's best talent, through workshops and debates on new trends and practices.

Speaking about the festival, Sen said, "Kolkata is considered to be India's Mecca art and culture. Maya Art Space, being one of the most revered art venues in the country has been showcasing the best of photographic works of not only artists in the city but some of the stalwarts of this sub-continent and the world. The thought of doing this festival has been on our mind for over a year and we wanted to deliver one of the best curated and managed festivals India has ever seen".

"The repertoire we are putting up will make KIPF 2019 a must-attend festival for the world's who's who," Sen who is herself a world-renowned photographer and filmmaker and founded further added.

Sinha, who is now one of India's most respected and revered artists said the festival has already shaken up the art world across the globe with its strong and yet sensitive curatorial drama.

"The festival will stitch Kolkata together into a singular platform – homes, galleries and public spaces all becoming platforms showcasing incredible work spanning decades. Madhuchhanda and I want to give India a festival that is best of both the worlds – East and the West and that is exactly what KIPF will be," he added.

India's top art historian and curator Uma Nair will herself curate some of the collections. She is also on the advisory board of the festival along with stalwarts like Jogen Chowdhury (world-renowned artist), Sandip Ray (multiple awards winning filmmaker), Gautam De (director, Indian Council of Cultural Relations), Nemai Ghosh (iconic photographer), Amol Ghosh (social activist) and Ganesh Holoi (eminent Indian painter).

Another major highlight of the festival will be Nair's portrayal of Jyoti Bhatt's work in a curated show called Living Walls - a testimony of India's indigenous arts and vanishing traditions. Jyoti Bhatt – world-renowned Indian painter, printmaker, and photographer known for colorful works that combine a graphic sensibility with traditional Indian folk design will show 20 photographs of the Indian countryside.

One of the highlights of the festival will be the first-ever look into India's best-known living photographer Raghu Rai's 40 years of photographing Kolkata.

Rai will showcase 50 of his works on Kolkata taken over the last four decades, mainly covering the world's greatest festival – the Pujas.

Never seen before photographs taken by the Oscar-winning filmmaker and kept carefully in the family vault will be shown to the world at KIPF 2019.

Some of Bengal's greatest names from across fields – cinema to art, literature to music will for the first time ever, show their work behind a still camera.

Ace actress and director Aparna Sen, award-winning filmmaker Goutam Ghosh, master painter Jogen Choudhury, globally acclaimed writer Kunal Basu, India's greatest heart surgeon Ramakant Panda to music director Shantanu Moitra will showcase a body of work at KIPF 2019 that has never been exhibited before.

Arguably, Kolkata's most revered old man of photography – Nemai Ghosh who is most known for working with Satyajit Ray as his photo biographer for over two decades, starting with Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne till Ray's last film Agantuk will showcase a body of work across his life – not just on Bengal but also his tryst with Bollywood.

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