Kolkata International Film Festival: Jaya Bachchan inaugurates exhibition on Amitabh Bachchan

Prosenjit Chatterjee, Shubhaprasanna, Arindam Sil, Sudeshna Roy, Kaushik Ganguly, Raj Chakraborty, and others were also present at the event,

Prosenjit Chatterjee, Jaya Bachchan and Arindam Sil at the inaugiration event

To pay tribute to Amitabh Bachchan on his 80th birth year, the 28th edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival has hosted a grand exhibition at Gaganendra Pradarshanshala. On December 16, Jaya Bachchan, along with Prosenjit Chatterjee, Shubhaprasanna, Arindam Sil, Sudeshna Roy, Kaushik Ganguly, Raj Chakraborty, and others, inaugurated the exhibition, Amitabh Bachchan: A Living Legend.

From his journey from his early years to his seminal works – the exhibition showcased Big B’s life. Shubhaprasanna helped a team with the design of the exhibition. There are film stills, photographs from behind-the-scene shoots, still photographs of the legendary actor, and brief writeups that are used to design the exhibition. After inaugurating the exhibition, Jaya Bachchan joked, “Shob to Amar boi theke newa (All the elements are taken from my book.”

Meanwhile, Amitabh Bachchan’s speech at the inauguration of the festival on freedom of expression, censorship, freedom of speech, civil liberties, and other social issues has taken social media by storm. At the beginning of his speech, he referred to the colonial era and how communal divides are created and censorship was imposed by the-then British rulers during the pre-independence era. While elaborating on the journey, he then raised the issue of how questions are still raised on civil liberties and freedom of expression.

Just before his speech, Shah Rukh Khan also talked about how cinema can initiate a journey toward a more inclusive world amid the ‘negativity’ and ‘narrowness’ of social media. “Social media is often driven by a certain narrowness of views that limits human nature. I read somewhere that negativity increases social media consumption and thereby increases its commercial value as well. Such pursuits of the collective narrative make it divisive and destructive. Cinema exposes the vulnerability of human nature by telling stories in their simplest form – as they are lived. It allows us to know each other better. In a way, it is best placed to sustain a collective counternarrative that speaks to the larger nature of humankind – a narrative that brings to the fore the human capacity for compassion, unity, and brotherhood,” he said.

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