Films like Jonaki developing modern, art language of cinema: Jim Sarbh

Actor Jim Sarbh, fresh from the success of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat, was at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) for the world premiere of his next Bengali-English film Jonaki. He lauded its director Aditya Vikram Sengupta for taking a risk few would dare.

Jonaki, which stars Lolita Chatterjee, Ratnabali Bhattacharjee and Sarbh in lead roles, is a tale of an 80-year-old woman who searches for love in a strange world of decaying memories, while her lover, now old and grey, returns to a world she is leaving behind.

Sarbh said in a statement: "The Rotterdam Film Festival really makes you feel like part of a film family. I was so glad I got to be there and I got to see the world premiere of Aditya's beautiful dreamscape film. I am glad that he is out there taking risks making films that other people would be too afraid to, developing a new modern Indian art language of cinema."

Sengupta's second feature after Labour Of Love (2014), Jonaki had four screenings as part of IFFR's Bright Future Section, which has been running since 24 January.

Produced by Magic Hour Films, For Films and Catherine Dussart Productions, Jonaki received a standing ovation at the festival, followed by a question and answer session.

Sengupta said: "IFFR upholds auteur cinema and there could not have been a better place for us to premier Jonaki. The audiences here are amazingly receptive, inquisitive which made it even more special for Jonaki to have its premier at IFFR 2018. Audiences here do not only come to be entertained by cinema but to experience it."

It was a sold out premiere, said Samir Sarkar, Magic Hour Films, the film's principal producer.