BOLLYWOOD actor Amitabh Bachchan, who had mesmerised the people of ‘City of Joy’ with his Bengali at the inauguration of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) last week, continues to be its biggest crowd puller.
A select bouquet of seven of his most memorable films are being screened in Kolkata at the eight-day festival which ends on Saturday (November 17).
Officials said all the shows are going houseful with tickets being sold out days in advance.
26-year-old techie Goutam Basak, who stood in a queue at the state-run auditorium Nandan to buy tickets of the Yash Chopra directed 1975 classic film Deewar said it is probably the only time he will get to watch his favourite film on the big screen.
“The new releases can be seen in theatres but not the old ones. This was a golden opportunity for me to watch it on the big screen rather than on DVD,” he said.
Right from the 1969 film Saat Hindustani, one of Bachchan’s earliest films, to more recent hits like Black and Chini Kum, are being shown. Others include Hrishikesh Mukherjee directed Abhimaan and Sudhendu Roy’s 1973 film Saudagar.
Fondly called ‘Babu Moshai’, as his character was called by Rajesh Khanna in ‘Anand’, Bachchan had struck a chord with the city while inaugurating KIFF last Saturday (November 10).
He had begun his speech by saying “Ami Banglay bolchi asa kori apni bhujte parben (I am speaking in Bengali. Hope you will understand)” amidst loud applause.
