Goutam Ghose shoots for Moner Manush; Prosenjit as Lalan Fakir

Goutam Ghose and Prosenjit brought Moner Manush to China last weekend, the only Indian film to have been selected for the competitive section of the Shanghai International Film Festival. And though The Quest — the English name by which it was known here — missed out on the Golden Goblet for which it was up against 15 other films, it still drew a sizeable audience.

Ghose, flanked by Prosenjit and Chanchal Choudhury (who played Kalua), and co-producer Habibur Rahman Khan, introduced the film’s spiritual theme ahead of the screening, saying that it is a message against religious hatred. It played to an almost full hall, despite its subject being rooted very much in Bengal.

This alien quality was probed at the post-screening press conference. The film calls for “certain requirements” of the viewers; such as background knowledge of the culture, observed one Chinese reporter. “Did it do well in India? And when you take it abroad, what kind of reception are you expecting?” she asked.

“When I watch a Chinese film, I go back home and try to find out more. Cinema has the ability to educate about different cultures,” said Ghose. “There was a private meeting with the Chinese Premier when he came to India recently where he quoted from Tagore and Vivekananda. There used to be a very strong bond between the two cultures and we need to revive that.”

India and China, he said, had a connection that went back 2,500 years. “Buddhism disappeared from India and came to China. But in 1962 there was a stupid war that separated us.” Ghose, at least, has bridged that divide before with his work. “The Chinese government bought Antarjali Jatra and Dekha for broadcast on TV. At the Goa film festival, a Chinese reporter told me that they know my work in China!” said Ghose. The filmmaker had also travelled through China in 1994 to make the documentary, Beyond the Himalayas, the result of a 14,000km expedition starting at Kashgar and moving through the Taklamakan desert, touching the ancient Chinese capital of Xi’An (Chang’An) and Mt Everest base camp.

It was Prosenjit’s first trip to China, but coincidentally, the star came on a break from shooting for Dibakar Banerjee’s film Shanghai.

“The character you played is not a normal role. He is a saint, a legendary life. How did you prepare for it?” another Chinese journalist asked him.

“I put a lot of time into it. Indian actors release a lot of films. I have done over 300 films in my career, yet for this I did not work (on anything else) for eight to nine months,” said Prosenjit, who also spoke of the self-imposed exile he endured before shooting the film. “I am born and brought up in the city, so I had to learn how to dance like Lalan would have danced…. I lived with those people, ate vegetarian food and slept on the floor.”