A film made by a cast and crew of doctors has seen a theatrical release this Friday. “Pratyabartan is a feature film of 130 minutes. Everyone involved, except the assistant director and the cameraman, are graduates of Medical College and Hospital Kolkata,” said Dr Suddhasatwya Chatterjee, the director.
The film is being screened at Bioscope in Axis Mall, New Town, Padmashree in Jadavpur and Ellora in Baruipur. “We also held premiere shows at City Centre I and Acropolis. Our college reunion was held over Thursday and Friday, so several attendees flocked to the premiere shows,” the internal medicine and rheumatology specialist added.
The concept was by ENT specialist Dr Abhik Ghosh and the story was written by orthopaedic surgeon Dr Chinmoy Nath. The story revolves around the medical college reunion and has doctors reminiscing about life on campus 20 years back. At the centre is an NRI doctor who has come to sell off his ancestral property and leave forever. “It was not planned as a feature film. But as the shooting progressed, we realised that the story could not be told within an hour,” said Chatterjee.
Shooting for Pratyabartan took place at actual locations on and off campus, including the library, anatomy lab, Kumar’s canteen and Putiram, the vintage sweets shop in the locality.
This is the core crew’s third screen venture after two short films, Siddhanta and Simana. “I had directed several plays earlier before I started making short films to build on that experience,” he added.
Several generations of medical college students have acted in Pratyabartan, with the oldest actor being cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Siddhartha Chakraborty, who played a student’s father at the age of 76.
The film has six songs. The music composer, Dr Siwalik Banerjee, himself sang three of the six songs, and composed and wrote two. One of them, Jiboner roopkatha, has picked up several awards in festivals where the film has been screened. “The soundtrack was an international project as the violinist was in the US, I was in my studio in Coventry doing the mixing and mastering while the guitar, keyboard and piano were recorded in Calcutta. Distance hardly matters these days,” said Banerjee, a rheumatologist attached to Warwick Medical School.
Though the film was screened at the reunion in 2024, the theatrical release has created excitement. “This is my first big-screen outing. Though I have seen the film twice, I plan to take my family along to Axis Mall this weekend,” said urologist Dr Tridibes Mandal of the class of 1999, who stays in New Town.