kolkata 23 International Film Festival Press Conference held on 5th November 2017 The Kolkata Film Festival which was started in the year 1995, was the culmination of a film society movement that drew its inspiration from the masters of Bengali Cinema - Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen. The KIFF is organized by the Kolkata Chalachitra Utsav Society, with financial and logistic support from the Government of West Bengal. Earlier, the Kolkata International Film Festival, though prestigious, was a comparatively small affair and hence it couldn't reach a large audience. Since 2011, our Honorable Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has taken it to whole new level in terms of publicity and reach. This Film Festival grew into a larger and more inclusive celebration of cinema, a festival which is not just grand in scale, but also accessible to the common mass. From 2014, the Kolkata International Film Festival has become a competitive festival. This year the Royal Bengal Trophy would be awarded to the Best Film and the Best Director in Innovation in Moving Images section. The cash award for the Best Film is the single largest cash award at any International film festival till date. In addition to these, we are continuing with the usual competitive sections on NETPAC and Short & Documentary Films. This year a new competitive category has also been introduced – “Competition on Indian Language Films” – to encourage new ideas and new concepts to pioneer a change in the realm of cinema. The KIFF, under the guidance of our Chief Minister, celebrates cinema by bringing good world cinema to Kolkata and also taking it to the common mass. This year, there will be several new, innovative feature films which would be showcased in the festival and we shall reveal about them in the coming days and during the festival. The festival commits to be all-inclusive and interactive. This festival also comes alive with various seminars, master–classes, exhibitions, filmy adda, meet the directors, paray paray cinema and many more events.