Rick-show: French films to be screened open-air from 3-wheeler

‘Aims to bring a melange of heritage identity and French ambience...’

KOLKATA: A three-wheeler, carrying a screen projector and speakers has been parked in the compound of a heritage building in central Kolkata’s Park Street, for showing French films in an open-air environment.

The mobile cinema project, aptly named ‘Rick-Show’, was organised by Alliance Francaise, an organisation that aims to promote French culture around the world, as part of Bonjour India’, a programme to further peopleto-people exchange on the occasion of the completion of 75 years of the establishment of Indo-French diplomatic relations.

It is a great opportunity for us to organise Rick-show, the fifth event of Bonjour India at the Park Mansions, which has become the European Cultural Hub in Kolkata, Nicolas Facino, the Director of Alliance fran aise du Bengale, said on Friday.

Constructed in 1910 for residential and commercial use, Park Mansions is a large building having colonial architecture.

Films that are very diverse in their aesthetics but which have in common a very humanistic approach to their subject will be screened.

“We aim to bring a melange of heritage identity and French ambience to the heart of the city. The Courtyard of Park Mansions will be the house for art and film lovers for the next three consecutive evenings beginning April 29,” Facino said.

When the Rick-show unfolds, the world of cinema pops up.“This outstandingly creative project, Rick-show will be a chance indeed for the audience to discover the marvellous courtyard existing inside the colonial structure of the Park Mansions,” Facino said.

The Rick-Show programme is being held when the Kolkata International Film Festival is going on in the city. Within the heart of the project, there is the desire to showcase contemporary art films to communities that have little access to artworks in India - remote regions and underprivileged communities, a spokesperson of the project being held in collaboration with a corporate group said.

It brings cinema to people on an everyday object an archetypal three-wheeler and rickshaw is a sign of mobility in India, a spokesperson of the project being held in collaboration with a corporate group said.

If the Rick-show concept, the organisers have decided to employ it to screen French or world films at various sites such as parks, lakesides, and riverbanks throughout Kolkata during the winter.

“The Rick-Show is a mobile cinema transported by an auto-rickshaw. It was imagined by the French artist Le Gentil Garcon. The idea was born in 2020 when the Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum invited him to design a work of art for the public space,” a spokesperson of the Department of Design of the College of Architecture of Trivandrum said.

This outstandingly creative project, Rick-show will be a chance indeed for the audience to discover the marvellous courtyard existing inside the colonial structure of the Park Mansions,