State govt forms committee to commemorate 100 years of 'Bangla Cinema'

Kolkata: The state government has formed a committee for commemorating 100 years of Bangla Cinema.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is the patron of the 18-member committee, with Soumitra Chatterjee as the chief advisor and Goutam Ghose as the chairman.

The members of the committee include Aroop Biswas, the state Youth Services and Sports minister, Indranil Sen, Minister-of-State for Information and Cultural Affairs department, Madhabi Mukhopadhyay, Ranjit Mallick, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Deb, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Srikant Mohta, Kaushik Ganguly, Rituparna Sengupta, Indrani Haldar, Swarup Biswas and Vivek Kumar, principal secretary of the Information and Cultural Affairs department.

The committee will chalk out a plan to organise various programmes to celebrate the 100 years of Bangla Cinema. The committee, comprising most of the senior actors from Tollywood, will prepare a "Calendar of Events" to gift a unique programme on the completion of a century of Bengali cinema.

The first Bengali silent movie, Satyabadi Raja Harishchandra, was released in 1917. It was directed by Framji Dhobiwalla. Jamaibabu, another silent movie, directed by Kalipada Das, was released in 1931. But prior to it, Hiralal Sen had directed Alibaba, which was released in 1904.

However, Sen didn't get the due recognition. In the past 100 years, Bengali cinema has produced great actors like Pramathesh Barua, Durgadas Banerjee, Chobi Biswas and Kanan Devi among others. But the most popular matinee idol in the past 100 years has undoubtedly been Uttam Kumar. In the past century, Bengal has produced some of the finest film directors, including Nitin Bose, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and many more.

It may be mentioned that the initiative of the Chief Minister has taken the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) to new heights in the past six years. She has made it possible for people from all walks of life to witness the grandeur of the film festival, with steps taken to ensure that it doesn't remain bound only within Nandan.

The Information and Cultural Affairs department will be providing all necessary support to the committee.