The Bong Connection

*ing: Raima Sen, Shayan Munshi, Parambrata, Peeya Rai Choudhuri

Directed by: Anjan Dutt

USP: Of the youth, by the youth and for the youth. The film’s lead players, crew and producer were well within 30; director Dutt was well above the age bar, but he was suitably young at heart to connect with both GenX and GenEx.

Bottomline: The medium-budget film was a multiplex hit, recovering costs in three weeks. Good performances, good soundtrack and good script made it a must watch.

Anuranan

*ing: Rahul Bose, Raima, Rituparna, Rajat Kapoor

Directed by: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury

USP: The tale of two couples and their undefined relationships touched a chord in the urban crowd. Word of mouth worked for the debut film.

Bottomline: Shot with a little more than Rs 1 crore, Anuranan ran for 100 days in town. The film also went festival-hopping, from Delhi to Dhaka, Lahore to London.

Kailase Kelenkari

*ing: Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Parambrata, Bibhu Bhattacharya, Dipankar De, Biplab Chatterjee

Directed by: Sandip Ray

USP: Feluda, Feluda, Feluda... The super sleuth guaranteed a good opening, but the film-maker enhanced the film’s appeal by ensuring that Kailase Kelenkari was better than Bombaiyer Bombete. A great chase from Calcutta to Aurangabad, the unbeatable Feluda-Topse-Jatayu combo and the fascinating caves of Ellora gave Calcutta a special Christmas gift.

Bottomline: The box-office was on fire from the first day, first show.

Minister Fatakesto

*ing: Mithun Chakraborty, George Baker, Koel Mullick

Directed by: Swapan Saha

USP: Mithunda, of course. Tollywood’s first attempt at a sequel wasn’t really a sequel, but Minister Fatakesto hit box-office bull’s-eye. Producer Shree Venkatesh Films upped the gloss quotient with a snazzy rap number by Mithun and action scenes.

Bottomline: Last heard, the producers are planning Fatakesto 3!

I Love You

*ing: Dev and Payal

Directed by: Ravi Kinagi

USP: Aggressive marketing of two new faces, a seasoned director and eye-catching locales made up for the weak plot. The typical city boy-meets-village girl story ran to full houses for more than 50 days.

Bottomline: Set to complete 365 days in the suburbs, in mid-January!

Jaara Brishtite Bhijechhilo

*ing: Joy Sengupta, Indrani Halder, Roopa Ganguly, Sudip Banerjee

Directed by: Anjan Das

The X factor: Not a box-office favourite, Jaara Brishtite Bhijechhilo worked for those who love complex stories that say little and leave a lot to the imagination. The theme was the coming of age of a poet. A lesbian encounter and the marital rape were handled sensitively.

Bottomline: Das got tickets to a spate of festivals (Osian’s Cinefan, Thrissur, Lahore and Palm Spring Festival, USA) and even bagged the special director’s award at the Almaty festival in Kazakhstan.

Bow Barracks Forever

*ing: Lilette Dubey, Neha Dubey, Victor Banerjee, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Clayton Rodgers, Sohini Paul

Directed by: Anjan Dutt

USP: The barracks and its residents. The world of Anglo-Indians came alive in one part of Calcutta that makes a trip down memory lane seem so real.

Bottomline: Human stories humanely told, some flesh-and-blood characters and memorable acting made Bow Barracks Forever a treat.

(Which is your favourite Tolly film of 2007? Tell t2@abpmail.com)

Amitabh Bachchan

The self-proclaimed “Kolkatar jamai” returned to his sasural in March to shoot for his first English film, The Last Lear, with Rituparno Ghosh. His two-weeklong stay in town — after about 25 years — sparked off fan frenzy, with thousands queueing up on the Bypass for a glimpse of their hero.

Busy behind the iron curtain at Bharat Lakshmi Studios, Bachchan slipped into the garb of Shakespearean actor Harish Mishra.

 

Preity Zinta

She was in town for exactly the same reason as Bachchan — playing a part (of actress Shabnam) in The Last Lear. But the bubbly Bolly star made sure she did something more than just shuttle between her hotel and the sets. A lucky few passing through Park Street one evening caught the dimpled actress slipping into Satramdas Dhalamal for a jewellery tryst.

 

 

Arjun Rampal

Arjun Rampal was the man about town when he was here as part of The Last Lear Bolly team. With co-star Jisshu Sengupta as guide, he dined at Blue Potato, checked out the discs and even hit the dance floor at Shisha. The girls went crazy over his moves. Back on the sets, he was Siddharth, a scheming film-maker who gets Bachchan to act in his film.

Naseeruddin Shah

His occasional trips to Calcutta were mainly for theatre, until Anjan Dutt’s BBD happened in May. Bollywood’s most versatile actor stayed put in the city for quite a while shooting — and also playing tennis at Tollygunge Club. In BBD, he plays Rajiv Gupta, a business tycoon who gets involved in a murder case.

 

 

 

 

 

Bipasha Basu

Back home at last, and busy brushing up her mother tongue, Bips is the last in a long line of Bollywood visitors 2007, and the only one that Calcutta can claim as its own. The Gariahat girl is here for Rituparno Ghosh’s Bengali film — her first — Shob Charitro Kalponik, opposite Prosenjit. “It feels very nice to come back to Calcutta,” smiled the sex bomb.

They also came...

Shefali Shah and Divya Dutt for The Last Lear. Sonali Kulkarni, Jimmy Sheirgill and Kay Kay Menon for BBD. Sandhya Mridul, Prroshant Narayannan, Rajat Kapoor, Simone Singh and Sonali Kulkarni (again) for Arindam Nandy’s Via Darjeeling. Rahul Bose for Aparna Sen’s The Japanese Wife, and Jaya Prada for Ashok Viswanathan’s Shesh Sanghat.