The speeches of Amitabh Bacchan, Shahrukh Khan in Kolkata Film Festival were brilliant.

Amitabh Bacchan, Shahrukh Khan gave fantastic speech in inauguration of 20th Kolkata International Film Festival. The 20th Kolkata International Film Festival 2014, started off with a brilliant inauguration in Netaji Indoor Stadium on 10th November, 2014. It was a brilliant occasion by every standard. Mamta Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal managed to invite the major dignitaries from different parts of the world and especially India. The 8 day film festival started with the inauguration on 10th November, 2014. The legends who graced the occasion included Amitabh Bacchan, Jaya Bacchan, Aishwarya Rai Bacchan, Abhishek Bacchan, Tanuja, Shahrukh Khan and many others. The August gathering also saw Bengali legends like Ranjit Mullick, Madhabi Mukherjee, Moushumi Chatterjee, Moonmoon Sen and others. Shahrukh Khan in his short speech made sure that he could say something in Bengali. This is the third time he had inaugurated a film festival and he said in his own words that honest creation is what the spectators expect from the creators. Amitabh Bacchan gave an extended speech. He did huge homework for that. He emphasized on women empowerment. He mentioned that both in Bengali films and hindi films, the directors and writers emphasized on women’s social standing. Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s Parineeta, Biraj Bahu told the same. Tagore’s stories also reflected them. While directors like Bimal Roy with films like Bandini, Sujata, Mehboob Khan with films like Mother India showed women’s individuality in Indian society, renowned Bengali directors like Satyajit Ray in his films Charulata, Pather Panchali had showed the different facets of women characters and also it was shown in films of other giants like Tapan Sinha who showed it in films like Jotugriha. Amitabh Bacchan’s speech was par excellence. Australian Filmmaker Paul Cox gave a brilliant speech explaining the importance of film festivals which brings expression of different countries and connects the countries together. Amol Palekar, Irfan Khan, Tanuja, Jaya Bacchan all congratulated the Bengali audience and the love for films in Bengal. Mamta Banerjee invited everyone and talked about the film festival showing films of 60 countries in Kolkata for the next 8 days. She also said what Bengal thinks today India thinks tomorrow. So Bengali writers, filmmakers and actors had been inspirations for other directors, actors of other parts of the world. So she expected everyone to enjoy the festival for the next few days.