During India’s election season, Kolkata celebrates cinema of poll-bound Venezuela

Kolkata: When India is seeing its 18th Parliamentary elections to elect a new government for the country amid political thrust and parry between the ruling and Opposition parties, Kolkata is gearing up to celebrate the cinema of yet another third world country, Venezuela, which too is fraught with political crisis and is finally headed for another

Presidential election.

On Monday, a five-day Venezuelan Film Festival is all set to kick off at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) main auditorium in collaboration with the Embassy of the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela and Forum for Film Studies and Allied Arts (FFS &AA). The festival will continue till April 26. The first show (Monday) is at 4:30 pm and on other days screenings are at 6 pm.

It is said the first film exhibition in Venezuela took place in 1896 in the city of Maracaibo (Zulia State) at the Baralt Theatre. Luis Manuel Mendez, an entrepreneur from Zulia, is said to have acquired a vitascope from the Kinetoscope Company in New York City. He had also acquired the rights to use the vitascope within Venezuelan and Colombian territories.

Organisers of the film festival are of the opinion that its relevance lies in the fact that India and Venezuela have often shared similar political and socio-economical trajectories while both countries are all set to determine their future political leaders to usher in a government that will seek to set policies for the betterment

of its people.

The film ‘Days of Power’ by Roman Chalbaud, scheduled to be screened on April 24 in the festival, is a timely reminder of the adage power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. ‘Days of Power’ takes place in Caracas in the 1960s, in a time of political and social struggles and transformations. Post fall of the Perezjimenista dictatorship which repressed the youth that opposed it, Fernando Quintero, a revolutionary leader, ascends to institutional power, thus letting his ideals be betrayed to become an accomplice in the repression that he had previously fought. His son Efraín, heir to his old convictions, feels involved, generating contradictions that make him an active adversary of the government and his own father, triggering a tormented ending.

On Monday (inauguration), Alfredo Caldera, Cultural Counsellor, Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will be present as chief guest, Vipin Vijay, Dean Films, SRFTI will be present as guest of honour, among other noted dignitaries.