He may be a man besieged nowadays, but the connoisseur in him has not given up.

Today, even as south Bengal was caught in a spiral of violence, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was busy defending the 15th Kolkata Film Festival, his own brainchild, and its controversial promotional poster that depicted the bare back of a woman on one side and blurred images of film maestros Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak on the other.

While journalists fired questions at a press conference weather a film festival in these turbulent times was the best idea, Bhattacharjee was philosophical. “Problems will always be there in life. Even a hungry man sings. Who knows you find a solution of one of the problems facing us in one of the films?”

As questions flew about the political correctness of the poster, the CM defended it saying he saw nothing wrong in it. Asked why blurred images of Ray and Ghatak were used, he said: “Cinema posters do not necessarily have to have images or pictures of Ray and Ghatak.”

And after the press conference to announce the film festival was over and he was coming out of Nandan, the venue of meet, he stood before the poster, examining it for about a minute and then went back to his room at Nandan.

Later, Neelanjan Chatterjee, Director, Nandan, said: “The chief minister approved of the poster. In fact, he said those who were criticising the poster have not seen posters of film festivals held abroad. They are much more aggressive.”

... contd.