Short films are now extremely popular. Audiences now have short attention spans and hence short films are a great way of reaching out to them. This has led to the gradual rise in short films all over the world. Being able to narrate a story in a limited time and keep the audience engaged is a great thing indeed.

Understanding the popularity of the short films, a short film festival was organized in Kolkata at Satyajit Ray Auditorium of ICCR.

It was a one-day short film festival titled Calcutta Shorts. This was organized in collaboration with Take 5 Communications and Anthelion School of Art.

Kapilananda Mondal—a renowned visionary and social worker was the chief guest at the event. Biswajit Matilal, corporate communications vice president, Sujoy Biswas, CEO of Techno India Group, Mallar Ghosh, a well-known musician, and Sumit Roy, a veteran singer were the other dignitaries who graced the event.

A total of eleven short films by renowned and amateur filmmakers were screened at the inaugural edition of the short film festival.

The films which were screened at Calcutta Shorts were:

BUCKET LIST (Hindi): Director Mini Pandey, 22 min.

ANURANAN (Assamese): Director Rupantar Borpatra Gohain, 14 min.

JUDDHA – THE WAR (Bengali): Director Sourav Pal, 17 min.

BHETKI (Bengali): Director Dona Roy, 13 min.

FORBIDDEN (Bengali /English): Director Abhishek Ganguli, 22 min.

HELP (English): Director Aishwarya Das, 3 min.

I LOVE INDIA (Silent): Director Partha Bhattacharjee, 6 min.

THE DOOR (Silent): Director Faiz Alam Khan, 8 min.

JONMODIN (Bengali): Director Sudip Chatterjee, 9 min.

THE WRITER (Bengali): Director Amit Dutta, 18 min.

INTERVIEW (Hindi): Director Santodeb Dutta, 18 m

In addition to the screening of short films, creative entrepreneurs Dipayan Banerjee of THE CREATIVE POST and Senior Film Director Tathagata Bhattacherjee of TAKE 5 COMMUNICATIONS announced that CALCUTTA SHORTS would now be an annual event for cine lovers and the next editions will be for one or two days.

Priyanka Dutta