45,000 attend Mother Teresa film festival

(August 30, 2010) The Mother Teresa film festival on the occasion of the nun’s 100^th birthday anniversary Aug. 26, was a resounding success with over 45,000 people attending the four-day event organizers in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata said. Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Third Mother Teresa International Film Festival on Sunday, the head of the West Bengal state government’s prestigious film centre, Nandan, said it was an honour for the local government and its film centre to host the birth centenary event. Nandan along with Calcutta’s Catholic Archdiocese co-organized the August 26-29 festival. The event showcased 18 films on Blessed Teresa, with 64 screenings, for some 45,000 people, said festival director Sunil Lucas, who is also president of SIGNIS West Bengal State unit. He said he was amazed at the response, with all shows packed with people sitting in the aisles or standing at the back. Besides the two special screenings for 500 disabled people, there were also more than 7,000 residents from Missionaries of Charity care centres, he said. The festival will now tour India over the next six months, and will be staged in 15 other countries, he added. Canadian Jesuit filmmaker Father Pierre Belanger who presented his film, “The Making of a Saint,” said he was moved to see the cooperation between Church and secular organizations in staging the event.