KOLKATA: “Ticket kete na ki pass niye” (Did you buy a ticket or do you have a pass?) - this is what the Kolkata government has been asking its residents.

The state government’s Information and Cultural Affairs (I&CA) department has been running an outdoor campaign to spread awareness about its 19th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) that opened on Sunday.

The department owns close to120 hoarding space in the city and has used almost one-third of the space for the promotion of KIFF.

Government enlisted agencies including Arun Sign Service, Karukrit Advertising and Pioneer Publicity Corporation have been asked to maintain the hoardings for KIFF.

“The teaser campaign has been out for some time now. It is just to spread the right word among the people about the festival,” said West Bengal Outdoor Advertising Association, treasurer and grievance committee convener, Ashif Kumar Biswas.

While S Chakraborty from Karukrit Advertising said that the government has given two billboards to each agency in one area where one advertisement would be there to promote the festival and the other one will be used for commercial advertisement so that the agencies can recover the cost of the government hoarding. “We have got 20 by 10 feet flex from the authorities,” he said.

When asked about the money being spent in the advertisements, the agencies said that since these billboards are owned by the department, the cost is not much.

City based media analysts think that the teaser, which is usually a common aspect of such festivals, increases curiosity among film lovers.

Apart from promoting the festival with outdoor campaigns, the state government has also made special efforts to pay tribute to legendary singer Manna Dey, who passed away recently and filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh, who too passed away earlier this year. While the singer’s famous songs are a part of the official theme song, the filmmaker’s unreleased movie Taak Jhaank (Sunglass) will be premiered at the festival.