A new literary event marked the winter calendar of Calcutta this year with Kolkata Literary Carnival by Suenos. Held at Jodhpur Park Puja Ground on February 19, the day-long event saw book launches, musical performances, talk shows and more, connecting people. Organised to inculcate reading habits among the young and adults, the carnival also stood out for connecting filmmakers and storytellers and screened a few films to the delight of the audience. The highlights.
Kolkata Lirerary Carnival also had a book stall with books from Ukiyokto and other publications.
The carnival engaged people with a number of activities including film screenings, multilingual talk shows, multi-lingual open mic events, and panel discussions.
Filmmaker Kaizad Gustad, known for films like Bombay Boys, Jackpot and others, was also there to headline a screenplay writing session on the software Final Draft. “I come very rarely here but I have friends from school days. I have been to many film festivals worldwide but never in Calcutta and would like to be here when that happens,” said Gustad. Talking about the changing methods in screenwriting, he said, “I think the fundamentals of writing haven’t changed though the software might change. Even with AI and ChatGPT you need to hire writers to write a screenplay. One needs to keep writing to keep improving.”
A flute and guitar performance by the band Delve with Fusion added a musical note to the event.
(L-R)Paul Hacker, Arjun Chaudhuri
US-based author Paul Hacker who’s travelling for the first time in Calcutta promoted his The Gatherings series. He said, “I chose a fantasy novel as my idea was to write for my grandchildren. There’s a lot of messages in the book that are impactful. I already have three books in the series and I am halfway through the fourth book, which will be the last book in the series.”
Kolkata Literary Carnival is the brainchild of Arjun Chaudhuri and talking about it, he said, “We are originally book publishers and we have been organising activity-based events across India to promote book-reading habits among children and adults. However, we decided to take our efforts a level up with a daylong thing that can be accessed by all. So you can say that the first edition of Kolkata Literary Carnival is in its pilot stage and we intend to scale it up, making it a two-three-day affair annually, in future.” Commenting on the carnival’s inclination towards films, he said, “We have been pitching a lot of film directors and scriptwriters to convert their books into movies. At times, we connect with small directors to make small-budget films, which enables more movies to be created. We have produced 10-12 short films and out of that we screened six today here. We also have a feature film on the anvil.”
