Asim Bando's KOLKATA BLOG

But name is much more than imagination, in fact, take some examples of Kolkata's famous places which are no longer exist. Metro cinema - One of the oldest and popular cinema hall of the city. It was famous not only for the Hollywood movies, especially for MGM productions, but, it was the rendezvous of lovers and other people - they used to meet under the shed of Metro cinema (as shown in the pic). It remained popular for many decades, not only for the  Kolkatans, but for the cine-goers of suburbs. They loved shows of old Hollywood movies in Metro. But now, this famous hall is being demolished...it is now matter of some more time when one can see only ruins of this old cinema hall. But we believe, it will still be the rendezvous of young lovers and others, the bus conductor will still call 'Metro stoppage'.             'Ujjwala' - another cinema hall of south Kolkata - which is no more. It was famous for release of Bengali movies. Uttam Ku...

                 It is the golden jubilee year of Satyajit Ray's film 'Nayak' where Uttam Kumar was the Hero. To mark the event,  22nd Kolkata Film Festival has arranged an exhibition on Uttam Kumar at Gaganendra Pradarshashala (গগনেন্দ্র প্রদর্শশালা) where rare posters, booklets of cinemas of Uttam Kumar and informative biography with filmography of this legendary actor are being exhibited. The exhibition has all the documentations of Mahanayak and his film related contents. The rare photographs of Uttam Kumar were taken by Nimai Ghosh, Mona Chowdhury, Subinoy Das and Satyajit Ray. On 12th November, 2016 veteran actress Madhabi Mukhopadhyay inaugurated the exhibition at 5pm. She said, "All the Bengalees have tremendous respect for Uttam Kumar. I afraid, another Mahanayak will never come. Uttam Kumar was one & only Mahanayak." The exhibition will run upto 18th November, 2016.

Director Srijit Mukherjee has done the muhurat of his new Bangla film "Jatismar" at Firingi Kalibari of Bowbazar area with puja or ritual on 2 July, Tuesday. Actor Prosenjit and Swastika also performed the worship . Actor star Prosenjit will perform the role of Anthony Firingi in the movie which was really a entertainer. Uttam Kumar played earlier the role of Anthony Firingi. The temple of Kali is about 500 year's old. And not only the rituals, the temple played a significant role in the scenario. -- A. B.

BD Garga's 1963-documentary on Satyajit Ray is all set for screening at Nandan, the West Bengal film centre, this evening. This was the first documentary made on Ray, barely eight years after the release of Pather Panchali. The Kolkata branch of Films Division will screen this rare documentary to celebrate 100 years of Indian cinema. Another interesting aspect of this documentary is the commentary by Ray himself. He shared in details his ideas on film making in this 35-minute documentary. Garga shot his film when Ray was busy filming his 11th film 'Mahanagar', and the documentary captures various moments of the filming of Mahanagar. The Films Division will keep screening various rare films throughout the year celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema. -- A. B.