Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture

November 14, 2013: Yesterday evening I attended Tomare Selam, the Satyajit Ray Memorial lecture at the 19th Kolkata International Film Festival at Nandan 1. It was a packed house that began with an introduction by Sandip Ray and a video of Late Satyajit Ray accepting his Oscar and speaking on cinema.

Sharmila Tagore, who owes much of her career and recognition to the films of Manik da, paid rich tributes to to the genius, and talked at lenght about her association with Ray since 1958 when he first launched her in a film when she was 13 year-old. Since then it has been very enriching journey which Sharmila shared with the audience.

Regarding Oscars and Indian films, Sharmila made an observation by saying that we should see and follow the films that are selected for Oscars and then take a decision about what kind of films from India should be shortlisted. She also said there is a huge world of films outside the West or Hollywood that we should follow.

I did spend some time at Nandan where I used to spend a lot of time during earlier film fests for many years.