Mainak Bhaumik’s film Cheeni, which had enjoyed a 100-day run in the theatres, is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The film focuses on the ever-changing dynamics between a mother (Aparajita Adhya) and her daughter (Madhumita Sarcar). “Its success is another reminder to me that it’s very important for a Bengali film to be primarily and essentially grounded in Bengali culture and its people. I can only imagine that the reason people liked the movie is because I stuck to a basic principle, which is that I must make a movie that people, including me, can relate to. I guess the ability to relate and identify oneself with, along with a lot of positivity, brings so much happiness to people. A lot of credit I must give to Madhumita, Apadi, Saurav (Das) and Pinkydi (Banerjee) who brought out and gave flesh and blood to my two-dimensional script pages. And also they are very likeable as people and on screen,” says Mainak, whose interest in wanting to make Bengali films began with Rituparno Ghosh’s Unishe April.
“It was the first Bengali film I felt that spoke about the Bengali people around me, which led me to gain the confidence to speak about the people I knew and saw around me. But it took me 14 films to get back and revisit the film that brought me into Bengali cinema, which became the inspiration behind Cheeni, my high-octane mother-daughter tale that sinks its teeth into the gloriously complex relationship we all share with our mothers. Having seen the overwhelming love that Generation Ami got, I wanted to continue on this path of making films that come from a very personal space of telling stories that I feel I really need to tell,” adds Mainak.