A Raj Kapoor bouquet for Florences Indian film fest

Jun 3, 2008

A retrospective of actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor will be the highlight of this year’s River To River, the film festival that has been fuelling the love of Indian cinema in Italy. Selvaggia Velo, the 35-year-old founder director of River To River, said “Awara”, “Shri 420″ and “Bobby” will be screened here to honour one of Indian cinema’s greatest independent film personalities.

“India and Italy have so much in common. Both societies have large families and people are equally emotive yet Indian cinema, not even Bollywood, is as popular here as it is in France and in Germany,” Selvaggia told IANS.

The festival held annually in December in Florence will reveal more about the films and the list of special guests later this season. River To River has been screening only Indian films since 2001.

Cinematic contacts between India and Italy date back to 1952 when the first International Film Festival of Bombay screened Italian films. Between 1957 and 1961 Robert Rossellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini visited India and the former returned home with much more than his impression of the country. Sonali Dasgupta, an aspiring Bengali actress, accompanied Rosellini back to Rome where they married and had a daughter.

The first River To River was mostly attended by a group of rich old ladies who were familiar with India through tourism. The audience was mesmerised to see an India that was unknown to them in films like Biju Vishwanath’s “Deja Vu”, Mira Nair’s “The Laughing Club of India” and Dev Benegal’s “Split Wide Open”.