Short film festival to mark Swamiji's 153rd birth anniversary

Kolkata, Jan 12: As the nation celebrates the 153rd birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda today, a one-day short film festival is taking place in the city to pay homage to the monk.

Six short films, aimed at children and teenagers, were being shown in the film festival 'Applied Vivekananda' at ICCR auditorium since last evening, Abhijit Dasgupta said on behalf of the organisers Sukriti Foundation .

The films of 2-10 minutes duration and split into teens and above teen segments, have fictional tales of winning over adversities and disseminate Vivekananda's preachings among the public.

"We have Chaiwala Publisher (Harsh Singh), Food First (A C Manoharan), Street Artist (Sanjit Datta), Cleanliness (Anjan Paul), Boatsmen (Satanjib Gupta) in the two categories," Dasgupta said. Swami Atmapriyanandaji Maharaj, Vice-Chancellor of Ramakrishna Vivekananda University, told PTI Vivekananda's teachings have become more and more relevant in the present age.

He had always been up against the subjugation of women, which had been rampant since the days of Mahabharat till the present, the VC said.

V Srinivas, CEO of Lead Rsearcher of Illumine Knowledge Resources, Padmashree recipient and founder of Vivekananda Girijana Kalayna Kendra Dr H Sudarshan, eminent doctor Dr Kunal Sarkar and others would discuss "How relevant is Vivekananda today' after the screening here.

Dasgupta recalled, "At a business school, students threw a Swamiji booklet and walked away from a class as they believed Swamiji was nothing more than a monk. That prompted us to initiate audio-visual projects aimed at the younger generation on behalf of Sukriti."

PTI