13 short films on Tagore's poems released

A total of 13 short films, based on of litterateur, composer and artist Rabindranath Tagore's poems, were released here Thursday to commemorate his 152nd birth anniversary.

The film series have been directed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta in collaboration with the National Film Development Corporation. These films have been produced with the financial support of Ministry of Culture.

The films were released by Union Minister of Culture, Chandresh Kumari Katoch. With a running time of around 30 minutes, the short films are based on Tagore's poems like, "Bansi" (The Flute), "Krishnakali" (The Dark Maiden), "Mukti" (The Freedom), and "Phanki" (Deception) among others.

"These films encapsulate Tagore's humanism and showcase the creativity that he had in him and a genius that he was. They reflect a wide range of his intellectual thinking from romance to philosophy, to tradition to the contemporary ills to western thoughts," said a statement issued by the culture ministry. "They are as much as relevant today as they were when conceived and written by Gurudev a Radical man of Indian Renaissance of his time," it added.

The 1861-born Tagore holds the unique distinction of having authored the national anthems of two sovereign nations - India and Bangladesh.The bard's rich, diverse and vast literary output is virtually unmatched in the world. He was also a painter and composer par excellence. In 1913, Tagore became the first Asian Nobel laureate and the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature.