Veteran actor Mithun Chakraborty has reacted to not being invited to the upcoming Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), despite attending a meeting related to the year-long celebrations planned to mark the birth centenary of Bengali cinema icon Uttam Kumar. The actor appeared to take a sarcastic dig at the organisers, suggesting that perhaps he was considered too “small” an artist to be invited.
Speaking to the media in Kolkata, Mithun said he had not received an invitation to the film festival. Contrasting the situation with his upcoming visit to Moscow, he said he was being invited to the Moscow Film Festival but had not been invited to the event in Bengal.
“I wasn’t invited to the Film Festival,” Mithun said. He then added sarcastically, “Main bahut chhota artiste hoon, shayad isliye nahi bulaya,” which translates to, “I am a very minor artist, perhaps that’s why I wasn’t invited.”
The actor’s comments come amid preparations for a year-long programme celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of Uttam Kumar, one of the most influential figures in Bengali cinema. Born Arun Kumar Chatterjee on September 3, 1926, Uttam Kumar became synonymous with Bengali mainstream cinema and is widely remembered as the industry’s “Mahanayak”.
Mithun’s apparent disappointment is particularly notable given his own deep association with Bengali cinema. The actor began his career in the Bengali film industry before becoming one of India’s most successful stars, eventually earning national and international recognition. He has worked extensively across Bengali and Hindi cinema and remains one of the most recognisable actors to emerge from Bengal.
The actor also appeared to question the criteria being used to decide who should be invited to the festival. Referring to his comparatively limited recent work in Bengali cinema, he suggested that this might have been the reason for his exclusion, while pointing out that several people invited to events do not necessarily have a direct connection with Bengal.
Mithun’s remarks came after he attended a meeting concerning the celebrations for Uttam Kumar’s birth centenary. The meeting was attended by several members of Bengal’s film fraternity, who were invited to offer suggestions for the year-long programme.
Director Goutam Ghose described the meeting as significant, while actors including Jisshu Sengupta, Abir Chatterjee and Mamata Shankar welcomed the plans. BJP leader and actor Roopa Ganguly also spoke about the scale of the proposed celebrations and said members of the organising committee were gathering suggestions from people associated with the film industry.
Uttam Kumar’s centenary celebrations are expected to include a series of events highlighting his contribution to Bengali cinema and his journey to becoming one of the industry’s most celebrated stars. His partnership with Suchitra Sen remains one of Indian cinema’s most iconic screen pairings, while films such as Nayak, Saptapadi, Harano Sur and Anthony Firingee remain central to his legacy.
Uttam Kumar also holds the distinction of becoming the first recipient of the National Film Award for Best Actor in 1967, winning for his performances in Anthony Firingee and Satyajit Ray’s Chiriyakhana.
For Mithun, however, the question of his absence from the film festival has introduced a political undertone to what was otherwise intended as a celebration of Bengali cinema. The actor is also a BJP leader, while the cultural and political landscape of West Bengal has frequently seen the state’s film fraternity divided along political lines.
Nevertheless, Mithun did not directly accuse the organisers of political discrimination. Instead, his sarcastic “chhota artist” remark conveyed his disappointment while leaving the reasons for his exclusion open to interpretation.
His comparison with the Moscow Film Festival also underlined the irony he appeared to see in the situation: despite receiving an invitation from an international film festival, the veteran actor claimed he had not been invited to an important cinema event in his own state.