A file picture of Rituparno Ghosh with Naseeruddin Shah at the actor’s residence in Mumbai

Rituparno Ghosh dons sunglasses to rediscover the region.

He apparently rediscovers the beautiful stretches of greens and the mountains every time he comes to north Bengal, at least that is what he claimed when he came here a year ago for the shoot of Khela, starring Prosenjit and Manisha Koirala.

And perhaps it is the charm of the place that has been casting magic over Ghosh, who is back to the place, this time for his new venture, Sunglass. Jaya Bachhan, Naseeruddin Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, R. Madhvan and Raima Sen are supposed to star in the bilingual film, the Bengali version of which will have Tota Roy Chowdhury instead of Madhvan. The film is being shot in Hindi and Bengali. This is the first time that Jaya Bachhan and Naseeruddin Shah will work with Ghosh.

While most of the film has already been shot in Calcutta, one of the four songs (music created by 21 Grams music band) will be filmed here in the third and final seven-day schedule to begin from October 20.

“We plan to work in and around Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Pelling in Sikkim,” Karun Punchi, the executive producer of Planman Motion Pictures, the producer of Sunglass, told The Telegraph. Punchi was here on a three-day visit to the locales. Planman Motion Pictures had produced another of Ghosh’s movies, Dosar, and has also done films like Sajhbatir Rupkathara and Rok Sako To Rok Lo (Hindi).

When it comes to venturing outdoors, north Bengal comes as an obvious choice to Ghosh, who is known for limiting the cinema space largely within the three walls of the sets.

“It is a kind of genre in film-making that Rituda has never attempted before,” Punchi said, explaining the sunny quality of Sunglass, which is expected to release in March. “It is a fun-filled light entertaining comic fantasy dealing with subtle human emotions.”

According to Punchi, initially it was decided that it would be shot in Bengali only. “But a film cannot be passed off as something regional, given that it tells a universal story. In order to make the most of it, we decided to shoot it in Hindi as well,” he said.