MUMBAI: The first ever Smita Patil film retrospective will be presented at the 10th Edition of the IFF Tofifest.

The official opening of the retrospective will begin on 22 October at the Tofifest Festival Centre in Baj Pomorski Theatre, at ul Piernikarska 3, in Toru?, one of the oldest cities in Poland. Her sister, Manya Patil, will be a special guest of the festival.

Patil was an icon of the ambitious Indian cinema and a true star of the ‘Indian New Wave Cinema‘. Together with Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, she was part of the most influential cinema quartet of the New Wave, the period in which Indian cinematography was developing artistically.

The films she starred in were all focused on problems of women. She was also awarded the Padma Shri award by the government of India. In 2011, she was described as the second-most renowned Indian actress of all time in one of Indian websites.

Indian traditionalists responded very negatively to her film characters, as they were unable to recognise any emancipation of women. In the famous Marathi film Umbartha by Jabbar Patel, she portrayed a guardian in a women‘s prison, who found the courage to abandon an unfaithful husband, who indulged himself with prostitutes.

Her performance in Mirch Masala by Ketan Mehta was one of the most memorable feminist characters - she played a woman living in a very small village, who was harassed by aggressive soldiers and had to fight for her dignity.