Legendary Actor Soumitro Chatterjee and the high priest of direction Buddhadeb Dasgupta, were among the five veterans from the Bengali Film Industry who were felicitated ON 1st May at the inauguration programme of the third Bengal International Short Film Festival (BISFF) organised by Bengal Film & Television Chamber of Commerce (BFTCC).
The other awardees were the renowned Bangladeshi actor and Television host Alamgir Hossain, the popular production and distribution house Venkatesh Films and the renowned Film Journalist Dr. Soma A Chatterji. The National Award Winners, 2018 from Bengal, Actor Riddhi Sen, Director and actor Kaushik Ganguly, Director Atanu Ghosh and Producer Firdausal Hasan, were presented with a special felicitation.
At the ceremony emceed by Ms. Madhumanti Maitra, the Hiralal Sen Award was conferred upon Actor Soumitro Chatterjee by Prosenjit Chatterjee and Mr. Bratya Basu, Devaki Kumar Bose Award to Director Buddhadeb Dasgupta by Gargi Roychowdhury and Mr. Gautam Deb, BN Sircar Award to Venkatesh Films by Paoli Dam and Mr. Sadhan Pande, Raj Rajjak Award to Actor Alamgir Hossain by Rituparna Sengupta and Mr. Sanjay Budhia and Kailash Mukherjee Award to Dr Soma A Chatterji by Subha Prasanna and Mr. Debashish Kumar.
“We are trying our very best to create a favourable climate for movie making in the state and that is the motto of BFTCC. The film festival is to inspire amateurs, budding and professional film makers to come up with more original and inspiring material”, said Firdausul Hasan, President of Bengal Film and Television Chamber of Commerce.
This year, the 3rd BISFF has received altogether 122 valid film entries from India, Bangladesh, Germany, Sudan and Africa out of which, 98 are Indian and 24 are foreign films, which also includes entries from Films Division, and from students of Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) & Satyajit Roy Film & Television Institute. Speaking about diversity of languages, the 3rd BISFF has received films in Silent, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Manipuri, English, German, African etc. languages. Some of the noted films submitted in 3rd BISFF have already won awards at different International Film Festivals of Ireland, Canada, New York, China, Bangladesh and India.
During the festival period, a total number of 54 films selected by the panel of experienced jury members will be screened. Out of these 44 films are Indian and 10 films are under the foreign category. Among the 98 Indian films, 34 films have been official selections for competitive sections.
BFTCC is a collective representative of Entertainment Industry including Film and Television and is registered under section 8 of the Companies Act 2013 as a Non-profit making service organization. In order to give the short film makers and documentary film makers the due respect that they deserve the Bengal International Short Film Festival (BISFF) came into existence, under the able management of BFTCC and a history was created.
With the sole motive of promoting & encouraging the Short Film Makers, the surplus of the proceeds from the event shall be channelized for the overall growth and betterment of the film industry as a whole. It will also be utilized in funding beneficial projects for children suffering with HIV / AIDS.
