After winning the prestigious Best Shorts Award at USA, now author turned filmmaker Ram Kamal Mukherjee’s film Season’s Greetings, a tribute to Rituparno Ghosh has been officially selected at the IFFSA Toronto International Film Festival 2020. This year the Festival will be virtual keeping the security and safety of the delegates and jury members. Almost 250 films in 16 different language will be screened at the Festival.
Global cinema icons Mr. Manoj Bajpayee from India and Ms Shahrbanoo Sadat from Afghanistan to its advisory board. The board also includes celebrated filmmakers Mr. Anup Singh from Switzerland and Mr Mostofa Sarwar Farooki from Bangladesh.
This 47 minute Hindi feature film will be a part of this prestigious festival, which is termed as “Biggest South Asian Film Festival in North America,” by Priyanka Chopra. The film marks Celina Jaitly’s comeback to moviebiz after eight years of hiatus. Speaking about the selection IFFSA Festival Director Sunny Gill says, “Filmmaker Ram Kamal Mukherjee’s Season’s Greetings, a tribute to Rituparno Ghosh, is a poetic presentation of love and acceptance. This subject is handled with care, shot exquisitely, and accompanied by a brilliant soundtrack. It also sees some powerful performances from the leads Lillette Dubey and Celina Jaitly Haag. The film deals with multiple issues that are pertinent to our society at large. Mukherjee reflects the sensitivity of late filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh in his homage. We are glad to screen this film as a part of our festival this year.”
The film opened at the prestigious Cardiff International Film Festival last year and travelled across globe garnering standing ovations and accolades from media and jury members. The leading lady Celina Jaitly Haag in an exclusive statement from Austria says, “I am exhilarated at the news of Season’s Greetings getting selected at IFFSA Toronto, I am immensely grateful to our director Ram Kamal for making me Romita (her character in the film) who resonates across all divisions of gender, race, religion and colour. Thank you Mr Gill and all eminent jury members, we are truly grateful.”
Produced by Aritra Das and Sshailendra Kkumar the film will be screened on August 13th in Toronto. “I am grateful to Mr Gill and Mr Singh for accepting our film in a prestigious ceremony. I truly feel that Season’s Greetings is a global language cinema. It connects with human emotions which has been beautifully portrayed by Celina, Lillette ji, Azhar Khan and Shree Ghatak. I am looking forward to hear from people in Toronto, as every feedback matters,” says director Ram Kamal Mukherjee, who already won Best Director award at Rajasthan International Film for Season’s Greetings early this year.