A week-long film festival to mark the India Bangladesh Joint Celebrations of 100 years of Indian Cinema and a Soumitra Chatterjee Film Retrospective is to begin in Dhaka today. The festival is being jointly organised by the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in Dhaka in association with the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation along with the support of the Bangladesh's Ministry for Cultural Affairs and India's Directorate of Film Festivals.

Bangladesh's Minister for Information and Cultural Affairs Abul Kalam Azad will be the Chief Guest at the Inaugural session of the film festival while Eminent Film Director Muzaffar Ali and noted actor Farooq Sheikh and Rajeev Kumar Jain, Director, Directorate of Film Festivals of India, will also participate in the programme at the National Museum auditorium in Dhaka.

Some 15 films from India and eight from Bangladesh will be screened at the National Museum auditorium in Dhaka during the festival, which includes Raja Harish Chandra the First feature Film made in India by Dada Saheb Phalke, Muzaffar Ali's Umrao Jaan, and
Bangladesh's internationally acclaimed film Matir Moina.

Addressing a press conference in Dhaka on the eve of the festival's inauguration, Director of Umrao Jaan Muzaffar Ali along with Actor Farooq Sheikh hoped that the celebrations would help in further strengthening the cultural bonds between the two countries.

Catherine Masud, Producer of the Bangladesh Film Matir Moina, described the joint celebrations as a positive initiative.

The festival also involves a retrospective of films of Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee to celebrate the recognition of his lifetime contribution to Indian cinema by being honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award this year.