Alongside international cinema, the Indian Panorama offered a glimpse of India’s varied cultural landscape. A happy event was the addition of a film based on Rabindranath Tagore’s noted dance drama Shyama, directed by NRI Obhi Chatterjee and produced by his danseuse-choreographer wife Kaberi Chatterjee who has done the production design and the costumes of the film. The film was produced in the United Kingdom. A section of short films and documentaries also found popularity with the cineastes of the city.

The retrospective of the films of Bimal Roy in celebration of his centenary in 2009 was a major draw at the festival. one of the last iconoclasts of the B&W era, alongside screening a retrospective of his films Udayer Pathey, Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Yahudi and Bandini, closing with a screening of the documentary Remembering Bimal Roy, directed by his son Joy Bimal Roy. An exhibition of photographs, working stills and posters of his films was held in the foyer of Nandan II.

Among documentaries from India, the films that deserve mention are Sharmila Maiti’s Bharati Devi - A Beautiful Heart, on the noted New Theatres actress of yesteryear who is active at eighty-plus and Supriyo Sen’s international award-winning film Wagah from the ‘Wall’ series of films Seven films were featured in the Children’s Section which included two Indian films, Sunil’s Street Symphony, that zeroes in on four boys who offer a microcosm of thousands of street beggars in the country and The Kid Gang directed by Ramchandra PN that focusses on the possible outcome of children’s participation in village politics. A few experimental films from Austria, Spain and Peru are aimed at a glimpse into forms of filmmaking.

Indian Select featured 12 films of which Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Janala was cancelled for technical problems. Few of the remaining revealed much promise. Among the better ones are Paresh Kamdar’s Khargosh (Hindi), T. Rajeevnath’s Stars In The Day (Malayalam), Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukhtankar’s Gho Mala Asla Hawa (Marathi) and Paresh Mokashi’s Harishchandrachi Factory (Marathi) Khargosh, based on a prize-winning short story by Priyamvad, is about the coming-of-age of ten-year-old Bantu who finds himself playing go-between for his older friend Avneesh and the girl he desires, who is named Mrityu metaphorically by her young boyfriend. But once the lovers get together, Bantu finds himself at a loose end and begins to feel a strong pull towards the young girl. His boyhood metamorphoses into adolescence and the world of sensuous passion begins to unfold. It is a film eloquent in meaning, aesthetics and cinematic texture in the production design, the sound effects, the music and the acting. Gho Mala Asla Hawa is the musical story of a young girl who revolts against the age-old custom of match-making by elders.

Harishchandrachi Factory marks Paresh Mokashi’s transition from Marathi theatre to Marathi cinema. It is a fictionalised recreation of a historical milestone that defined India’s entry into the world of motion pictures. Mokashi has experimented with fictionalised history and vivid yet typical humour. Harishchandrachi Factory is India’s official entry to the 82nd Academy Awards. Hiren Bora of Assam presented Basundhara essaying the ongoing conflict between man and elephant in the forest terrain of Sundarpur. Sisir Sahana’s Maati-O-Manush is about superstition in a village of West Bengal. Phir Kabhi directed by V.K. Prakash is a moving film about the change in human relationships as an aftermath of the death of a wife. Blessy’s Calcutta News is a delicate love story while Sachin Kundalkar’s Gandh is a hyperlinked film with three stories bound together by the sense of smell.

Among the 228 films spanning the screening programme were 75 contemporary films drawn from countries like the Bahamas, Cyprus, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Cuba, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and others. In celebration of the centenary of Bimal Roy, one of the last iconoclasts of the B&W era, alongside screening a retrospective of his films from Udayer Pathey to Bandini, an exhibition of photographs, working stills and posters of his films was held in the foyer of Nandan II. A centennial tribute was also paid to Elia Kazan of Hollywood whose films are marked by a leaning towards social realism. Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), Boomerang (1947), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata (1952), On The Waterfront (1954) and East Of Eden (1955) took the viewers back in a time capsule where within Hollywood, Kazan constantly struggled to fight studio Moguls to portray his perceptions of society. The Homage section covered four renowned filmmakers - Federico Fellini, Brazilian maestro Rogerio Sganzerla, Ousmane Sembene, the first African director to confer value on African images on celluloid and non-conformist Yilmaz Guney of Turkey. The Homage section was dedicated to Poland’s Andrzej Wajda, Hungarian filmmaker Marta Meszaros and Germany’s Caroline Link.

Screenings at Nandan I, II and III, Sisir Mancha, Rabindra Sadan, New Empire, Girish Mancha, Madhusudan Mancha and Purbasree drew crowds thinner than past years and also more vulnerable to discipline and control. Security was at a new-time high, perhaps traced to the political dissidences within the city and the state. There were frequent changes in the screening schedule towards the end of the festival but this is normal in any festival. The KFF is perhaps the biggest non-competitive international film festival in the country that now faces the challenge from festivals in other parts of this South-Asian sub-continent.