A documentary film in Bengali on the township’s past and present has been commissioned by the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. Work is on since last year and the project is on the editing table now.
“We want to prepare a document on what we inherited and what we are leaving behind,” said mayor Sabyasachi Dutta, whose brainchild the film is. He has also thought up a title for the film: Sekal O Ekal (Then and Now). “The story will speak of Bidhan Chandra Roy’s dream and start even before the dredging of the marshlands started — in 1962 (when Roy inaugurated the reclamation scheme).”
The responsibility for making the film has been given to Aurora Films, a pioneer in newsreels with an archive that includes the celebration of India’s first Independence day, funeral of Rabindranath Tagore etc. though they are better known as distributors of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali and producer of his Jalshaghar.
“Our brief is to catch the urbanisation of Salt Lake over the decades. After all, the township is far better than the rest of the city in terms of facilities and ambience,” said director Anjan Bose, who helms Aurora Films.
The team from Aurora has been shooting across Salt Lake through the preparations of the Fifa Under-17 World Cup, the Book Fair and Bidhannagar Mela. “We have even shot the building of the new reservoir near Tank 13 that will store the water that will come from the New Town plant,” said Subir Chakraborty, the assistant director.
Bose, a resident of Purbachal, Cluster VII, has also selected key moments from the township’s workaday life, like the overcrowded buses that enter Salt Lake every morning carrying office-goers and the morning activities at Banabitan. The biggest problem, he added, has been getting archival footage.
Shooting ended last week and Arindam Sardar is now busy giving it final shape. “We have about 12 hours of footage. We need to bring it down to less than half hour,” he said.
Though the corporation has not yet decided on how to reach the film to viewers, the mayor says the latest avenues will be explored. “We might even upload it on YouTube to ensure the next generation has access to it,” Dutta said.
