The 28th edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) is all set to begin on December 15 nearly eight months after the previous edition.
West Bengal Information and Culture department officials on Saturday said Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan would be the guests of honour at KIFF, while Jaya Bachchan, Rani Mukerji, Kumar Sanu, Mahesh Bhatt and Shatrughan Sinha would also be present at the inaugural function.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s ‘Abhimaan’ would be the inaugural film at KIFF, they said.
The film festival will have five competition categories, including International Competition Innovation in Moving Images, Competition on Indian Languages, Asian Select (NETPAC Award), National Competition on Documentary and National Competition on Short Fiction.
Applications have been received for the entry of a total of 1,078 films from 57 countries, of which only 183 films from 42 countries have been selected for the film festival, said officials. Around 215 shows will be screened across 10 venues during the festival.
The last edition of the film festival was organised between April 25 and May 1, 2022. The annual event was not held in the physical mode in 2020 and 2021 due to the restrictions imposed amid the Covid-29 pandemic.
The Kolkata Film Festival kicked off in 1995, but the event was thrown open to the public in 2011.
Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan had previously attended and inaugurated the film festival.
