Ringo

Love and Jodi Ekdin director Riingo is on a filmmaking spree. Not one, not two — Riingo has struck a 12-film deal with Mahuaa Films!

He has already ticked two of the dozen with Ray and The Cottage. Ray is a “psychological thriller” — Riingo’s tribute to Satyajit Ray. The Cottage is also a thriller; it revolves around a bunch of live-in couples who get killed one after the other.

For Ray, Riingo has spun a story around some famous characters from Satyajit Ray films with Saswata Chatterjee playing the celebrated filmmaker himself.

“I have picked Mandar Bose, Mukul, Dr Hazra, Jatayu (all from Sonar Kella) and others. Here, Ray, played by Saswata, meets his characters one by one and gets entangled in a crime that he didn’t commit. The twist is Mukul, the little boy of Sonar Kella, is a woman here. Model-turned-actress Tina plays Mukul, a psychic who can foretell the future,” says Riingo, having wrapped up the post-production work. He is targeting an August release for Ray.

Rii, Tina and Shaheb in The Cottage

But why Satyajit Ray? “Because like many aspiring directors, I too have grown up watching Ray’s films and I wanted to pay my tribute to him but didn’t know how. Then I had this idea and didn’t know who to cast as Ray. Finally, I approached Saswata and what a brilliant actor he is!” adds Riingo.

The whole of Ray was shot in Arunachal Pradesh in May. Riingo has also recreated the Sonar Kella sequence from Ray’s film in an old fort in Arunachal Pradesh. Ray also features TV actor Kaushik Chakraborty as both Mandar Bose and Dr Hazra.

Right after Ray, Riingo went behind the camera for his next Bengali film The Cottage, starring Shaheb Chatterjee, Tina, Rii, Rittika, and newcomers Shamun and Sourav. “The Cottage is a very different kind of a thriller where each of them gets killed, one after the other. Only two survive and they start suspecting one another until a third person arrives,” says Riingo. The film was shot in Mandarmani.

But Riingo isn’t thinking of taking a break now. Next up is Ghuri, a film on two childhood friends starring Joy Sengupta, Aparajita Ghosh Das and Barun Chanda. “It’s a redemption story — of a coward emerging as the hero,” he says. Right after Ghuri, Riingo will take Sector V to the floors. It’s a film on Salt Lake’s IT hub starring husband-wife pair Indraneil Sengupta and Barkha Bisht.

But why is he in such a tearing hurry? “I don’t take too long to shoot a film. The budgets swing from Rs 20 to 40 lakh and that’s why I have cast actors instead of stars in both the films,” he explains.

P.S.: “I am also planning a film on soccer, a spooky film on the Calcutta Metro and Kranti 2 with Jeet,” Riingo signs off. Whew!