West Bengal Information and Culture department officials have disclosed about Amitabh Bachchan, and Shah Rukh Khan will be the guest of honour at the Kolkata International Film Festival. Jaya Bachchan, Rani Mukerji, Kumar Sanu, Mahesh Bhatt, Shatrughan Sinha, Governor CV Ananda Bose, cricket legend Sourav Ganguly, and singer Arjit Singh will also be at the inaugural function.
The 28th Kolkata international film festival is at the Netaji Indoor Stadium, which will have 183 films from 42 countries screened across the 10 venues in Kolkata as a part of the festival. It will continue till 22nd December. The festival will also hold an exhibition on Satyajit Ray, talk shows and discussions on films, and workshops. The inaugural film will be Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Abhimaan (1973), having star cast as a Bachchan couple in the lead roles.
The film festival has five competition categories, International Competition Innovation in Moving Images, Competition on Indian Languages, Asian Select (NETPAC Award), National Competition on Documentary and National Competition on Short Fiction.
According to the officials, they have received applications for the entry of 1,078 films from 57 countries, but only 183 films from 42 countries were selected. Around 215 shows will screen across 10 venues during the festival. The last edition of the festival was held on 25th April and 1st May 2022. The festival has been low-key for the last two years due to the pandemic. The festival started in 1995 but was open to the public in 2011. Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh, and Jaya Bachchan attended and inaugurated the film festival earlier.