KIFF hosts 1st city screening of film on Mother Teresa
Times of India | 12 November 2025
Kolkata: On Sunday, Radha Studio was packed to capacity with people standing on the aisle for the first city screening of ‘Mother' — a feature film on Mother Teresa which follows seven consecutive days at a pivotal moment in her life when she decides to leave the Loreto Convent Entally and launch the Missionaries of Charity.
Teona Strugar Mitevska's film, which was selected as the opening film of Orizzonti programme at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, was selected in the Cinema International section of the 31st Kolkata International Film Festival. However, the absence of this film from the KIFF international competition has got many talking.
Some, though, raised eyebrows over why a film that competed in Venice never made it to KIFF's prestigious International Competition: Innovation in Moving Images that has a prize money of Rs 51 lakh.
"The preview panel decided not to keep it in international competition. But it felt that the film deserved to be seen here and recommended it for cinema international segment," said a KIFF source.
Two members of the cast, Akshay Kapoor and Amrita Chattopadhyay, were present at Sunday's screening. "It's quite baffling as a film, which was the opening film of Orizzonti section at Venice, was simply put into the non-competition category.
We won the award for Best Artistic Contribution at Tokyo Film Festival. Teona won the best director award at Euro Balkan Film Festival," said Kapoor, who had attended the Venice screening.
"It was disappointing to not have the movie in the main competition since it's a movie shot in Kolkata with the help of the Bengal govt's I&B ministry. Not being selected for that was shocking and disheartening. We were at least hopeful of getting a show at Nandan where we could have had the entire cast and crew from Kolkata come and watch the movie they helped to make," said Kapoor.
Some feel that this absence from KIFF's competition may also indicate KIFF's ability to get a choice of good entries from across the world to keep in the international competitive segment. "I think it was always tough in KIFF. Selection in any A-list festival did not guarantee a selection in KIFF. A film of mine which had got selected in Rotterdam wasn't even selected here. So, one doesn't know. I would have been happy if it was in competition," said Chattopadhyay.
Nandini Sengupta, costume stylist for India leg of ‘Mother', said: "I was initially apprehensive about the screening since the film's duration mentioned in the brochure did not match with the film's length. But that was a typing error and it was a heartfelt moment when I watched the film at Radha Studio. Last year, on the same day, we were shooting it in Kolkata near Burrabazar from 3 am in the morning. Finally, seeing the film felt so surreal. The edit and music were just how Teona had always wanted. We kept the school costumes of the Loreto girls baby pink for that very reason. Seeing all those tiny details accumulating to this final film was a great feeling. I look forward to the second screening of the film on Tuesday."