Kolkata: Ketan Mehta's historical film Rang Rasiya, based on the life of 19th century painter Raja Ravi Varma, was screened to an overcrowded theatre at the ongoing Kolkata Film Festival (KFF) today. The film starring Randeep Hooda and Nandana Sen is yet to be released commercially and has courted controversy for taking artistic freedom in boldly depicting nudity.
Film buffs stood in an hour-long queue at the state-run theatre Nandan with over a hundred of them sitting on the hall's floor to watch the film. "Given the response, I didn't feel that I am watching it at a film festival where the crowd is reserved. Here people from every walk of life came in," an overjoyed Nandana told PTI after the screening.
After Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata was the second Indian city to have a public screening of the film. The 2008 film is yet to release in cinema halls following
a dispute between Mehta and the distributors. The film has earlier won applause at international film festivals in Cannes, London, New York and Florence.
It got a standing ovation at the Chicago Film Festival last month and was voted as the Best Film this summer in the London Film Festival. In the film Hooda plays the painter while Nandana plays his muse Sugandha, who faces ostracism by the political class for baring her body for artistic expression.
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