Sabitri Dropped, Prosenjit New KIFF Chief

RBN Web Desk: Popular actor Prosenjit Chatterjee has replaced veteran actress Sabitri Chatterjee as the new chairperson of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF). While singer Indranil Sen has been appointed as the co-chairperson, Tollygunge legislator Aroop Biswas has assumed the role of chief advisor to the festival this year. Biswas was the co-chairperson in 2017.

Besides Prosenjit, the 2018 KIFF committee includes Nusrat Jahan, Deepak Adhikari (Dev), Moon Moon Sen, Debasree Roy, Satabdi Roy, Mimi Chakraborty, Sayantani Ghosh, Haranath Chakraborty, Ranjit Mallick, Rituparna Sengupta, Kaushik Ganguly, Arindam Sil, Raj Chakraborty, and others. Many of them have been retained from the last year’s committee. Filmmakers Goutam Ghose, Sandip Ray, and Srijit Mukherji also feature in the committee.

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Prosenjit, in his reaction, told the media that it’s a huge honour to be appointed as the chairperson of KIFF. The festival will celebrate 100 years of Bengali cinema this year, and elaborate plans have been taken up in this regard, he added.

The committee also has representatives from several leading film and technicians’ organisations along with officials from the concerned West Bengal government departments.

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Srijit, in his response, told the media that he has been included in the committee for the first time and it’s an unprecedented honour. He hoped to do justice to whatever responsibility is delegated to him.

Sabitri, when contacted by the media, said that she was not communicated about the decision to remove her from the committee. A meeting of the committee was convened some months back which she was unable to attend because of failing health. Since then, she has not been called for any other meeting, the 81-year old actress said.