MCCI Ladies Forum organized a Discussion on ‘Future Business of Media Production – Short Films, Theater, Webseries’ with Sandhan Pande, Hon’ble Minister of Consumer Affairs, Self Help Group and Self Employment, Govt. of West Bengal as Chief Guest and Bratya Basu, actor, director, eminent theater personality and Hon’ble Minister of IT and Electronics, Govt. of West Bengal as Guest of Honour, Kankana Chakraborty, National and International Award Winning young actress and short film director from Los Angeles. Papia Devarajan, Actress was also present.
Sadhan Pande observed that Kankana is an asset to our state; young people are making excellent films in modern days with low budget. He wanted to connect his department by projecting self help groups through films. Even without profit, the gesture itself is sufficient to make good films.
Bratya Basu mentioned that Kankana’s works and achievement portrays championship of womanhood. Regional actors, especially teenage talents must get inspiration from this kind of a career. “I feel proud as a Kolkatan for this achievement of Kankana who has been appreciated by Amitabh Bachhan”, said Shri Basu. Short film is very valid in our domain. Tax pattern of regional films are different. With the concept of short films, concept of visuality has changed. He congratulated MCCI for such an initiative.
Kankana Chakraborty observed that in theater there is no double take. She mentioned that she was pushed into theaters while in academia in US. It is a two way communication. Some of her works include ‘Echoes’, ‘Extremities’ and ‘Sans Merci’. In ‘Echoes’ all she had were three black boxes and a team of actors. “In theater an actor acts for the last row but in films an actor works for the first row”. She related herself with the quote of Jacky Chan, “we do movies better because movies are all we do”. She is passionate about making movies and theater. “Artists have capability of introducing a debate”, mentions Kankana. Short films portray a challenge of how a story is told in a short time frame. “If you have a camera, a story you can make it. If you don’t make it then nobody will know about it”. Webseries have been popularized because “there is no wasting” – it is all there on the net. Rather than seeing webseries, theater and films as competition, we would see them as different platforms which tell us different stories, observed Kankana.
Prapti Jhajharia, Co-Chairperson, MCCI Ladies Forum in her welcome address mentioned the growing popularity of short films and webseries and the changing face of media production business.