Bengali film to be screened at the London film festival
Anjan Das's Saanjhbatir Roopkathara marks the start of good tie-ups between Hollywood distributors and Indian creativity
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M Chhaya in Kolkata
Friday will see India's first regional film distributed by a Hollywood monolith releasing across West Bengal.
The same day, Saanjhbatir Roopkathara (Strokes and Silhouettes), produced by management guru Arindam Chaudhuri and distributed by Columbia Tristar, will be screened at the London Film Festival.
The Bengali film, starring veteran actor Saumitra Chatterjee and National Award-winning actress Indrani Haldar, has made it to the international jamboree as one of the year's seven outstanding celluloid creations.
The rave reviews the film received after its special screening in Delhi in October is expected to ensure good bookings at the box-office in Kolkata. The movie is being released in three auditoriums in the city. And depending on Kolkata's response, Planman Life, the entertainment venture floated by Chaudhuri, will decide on a rest-of-India release.
Saanjhbatir Roopkathara is much awaited not only for being a promising piece of parallel cinema, but also for the new grounds it hopes to break in 'bringing management structures and principles into work in the unstructured world of entertainment business.'
Directed by Anjan Das and adopted from Academy Award-winning poet Joy Goswami's novel, Saanjhbatir Roopkathara explores how a girl's beliefs are tested when she steps out of her sheltered life under her painter-father's eye. The girl finds her outlook wavering, but realises the sublime beauty of creation and how the petty patchwork of human life fades into insignificance.
"We chose the film because it is a very sensitive and sensible story that brings out the nuances of Bengali culture. Unlike the commercial Bengali films that are being released nowadays, this film is serious in its approach and, I am sure, will appeal to the urban Bengali," says Chaudhuri.
Why did Columbia Tristar offer to distribute a Bengali film? Because "Bengal is known for its rich and prolific film history with great talents coming from here," says Columbia Tristar managing director Uday Singh.
Singh says the Bengali film could mark the beginning of a tie-up that could provide an excellent opportunity to interact with the "enormous creativity that India has."