The three-day film festival of The Daily Star's Odommo Chattagram initiative began yesterday at the Fulki auditorium in the port city.
Open for all, the festival is showing off-beat and feature movies and documentaries. Every day, the films will be screened in two sessions -- from 3:30pm and 6:30pm.
Mushtari Shafi, widow of a Liberation War martyr, as the chief guest inaugurated the festival chaired by Shamsul Hossain, former curator of Chittagong University. Raisul Huq Bahar, Chittagong bureau chief of The Daily Star, and Shaibal Chowdhury, president of Chittagong Film Centre (CFC), were also present at the ceremony, among others.
In her speech, Mushtari Shafi said she had not noticed so many young talents interested in film until she came to the festival.
Shamsul Hossain said the port city had been difficult for filmmaking after the Liberation War. He hoped that this festival would encourage the new talents of Chittagong.
The Daily Star through this festival wants to highlight all the creative activities of the port city, said Raisul Huq Bahar.
CFC president Shaibal Chowdhury, also the organiser of the festival, said they had collected a total of 40 films made by students and youths of Chittagong. Of those films, six films would be selected for awards, he added.
On the openning day of the festival, four documentaries and two feature films were screened. The documentaries were: Shamsul Hossain's “Sufiar Kahini', Rupam Chakrabarty's “Purna Ek Surer Shyam”, Yasmin Kabir's “The last rites” and Anjan Sarkar Jimi's “Epitaph”. The feature films were: “Sareng Bou” directed by Abdullah Al Mamun and “Moner Majhe Tumi” directed by Matiur Rahman.
Today's first session of the festival will begin with Azizur Rahman's “Sampanwala” (140 minutes) followed by Sazzad Hossain Upal's documentary “Shuttle Train” (24 minutes).
Documentaries “Dipta akashe urbe” (19 minutes) and “Metho pather gaan” (39 minutes) directed by Jamil Asraf Khan Nayan and Shaibal Chowdhury respectively and feature film “Chhutir Ghonta” directed by Azizur Rahman will be shown in the second session.