India Press Releases - 2004

23 June 2004                                                             (Bengali)

Billy Wilder Films At American Center

Calcutta - The American Center, Calcutta, is organizing a festival of five films by the great Hollywood Director Billy Wilder from Friday, June 25 to Sunday,

June 27, 2004, to celebrate his 98th birth anniversary, which falls on June 22. The event will be held in the American Center's Lincoln Room, in collaboration with the Calcutta University Media Studies (Film & TV) Department, and Cine Central.

In Our Films Their Films Satyajit Ray mentioned that Wilder was among the five Hollywood directors whose works he had studied copiously. Ray placed Wilder in a group of masters such as John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston, and William Wyler. Billy Wilder has always been considered a great artist, who could mix high quality art and box office commerce with unparalleled ease. In an unusually productive film career spanning over half a century, Wilder won the U.S. National Medal of Honor, Life Time Achievement Awards from the American Film Institute, the European Film Awards and the German Film Awards, two Academy Awards as the Best Director, Grand Prize from the Cannes Film Festival and the Career Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival, among many others.

Films that will be screened during the festival are Some Like It Hot, Witness for the Prosecution, Double Indemnity, The Spirit of St. Louis, and The Front Page. Each of these films has won several awards, and the whole package is representative of Wilder's mastery over a diverse range of genres, from comedy to adventure to film noir to satire.