And when you are beating the Monday morning blues after the great festive season, something is coming up to cheer you up. It is the 31^st Kolkata International Film Festival.

The press conference to announce the various details of the festival was organized recently. It was graced by Aroop Biswas (Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs, Power, and Housing in the Government of West Bengal), Indranil Sen (Hon’ble MOS), director Haranath Chakraborty, actors Prosenjit Chatterjee, Koel Mallick, and others.

The focus country is Poland, and 19 Polish films will be screened at the 31^st KIFF.

The inaugural ceremony will take place on the 6^th of November at the Dhono Dhanyo Auditorium, Kolkata.

Saptapadi will be the inaugural film. The film is directed by Ajoy Kar and stars Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, and Chhabi Biswas in pivotal roles.

KIFF is accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Association (FIAPF), Belgium.

1827 films were submitted for the film festival. Out of this, 215 films have been selected for screening. 39 countries will be participating in the film festival.

Films in 18 Indian and 30 foreign languages will be screened at the film festival.

Prosenjit Chatterjee said, “I have been associated with this festival from a very young age. I used to come to the Kolkata film festival to watch great films. When we were growing up, we did not have access to such good films so easily. So this was our only source of watching good films”.

Koel Mallick said that the films selected for the festival were of high quality and hoped that the festival would be as successful as its previous editions.

Centenary tribute will be given to Ritwick Ghatak, Richard Burton, Sam Peckinpah, Santosh Dutta, Salil Chowdhury, and Raj Khosla.

Special tribute will be given to Robert Redford, Claudia Cardinale, David Lynch, Shyam Benegal, Arun Roy, Raja Mitra, and Shashi Anand.

Cine Adda will take place at the Ektara Mancha every evening from 7^th to 12^th November 2025.

The Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture will take place on 7^th November at 11 am at Sisir Mancha. It will be delivered by Ramesh Sippy.

The venues where the films will be screened are Nandan I, II, III, Rabindra Sadan, Sisir Mancha, Rabindra Okakura Bhawan, Cinema Centenary Building, Nazrul Tirtha I, II, Navina Cinema, Binodini Theatre, Menoka Cinema, SSR Ajanta Cinema, PVR- Mani Square Mall, Inox: Metro, Inox: Quest Mall, Inox: South City, SS Globe Cinema, New Empire Cinema and Prachi Cinema.

The 31^st KIFF will take place from 6^th to 13^th of November, 2025.

The closing ceremony will take place on 13^th November at Rabindra Sadan at 5 pm.

Priyanka Dutta