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| In full flow: Koel Mullick |
Sharon Dutta’s “hardcore thriller” Shikar released on December 1. In his second film, Sharon weaves a story around a young couple unwittingly caught in the web of crime and deception. “The USP of my film is that it is not a hero-based story but has a sublime romantic angle to it. The storytelling is realistic and sophisticated, with no high drama. I’ve tried to make it differently and hope people will like it,” says Sharon about his second film after Raat Barota Paanch.
Shikar has Koel Mullick and Amitabha Bhattacharya as the lead pair. “I play this spirited young girl who is full of life and in love with a shy and reserved boy with whom she runs away and gets married. In a twist of fate she finds herself alone in a brothel. Helpless, she suffers a complete change and loses her zest for life. You have to wait till the end to find out what happens next,” says Koel.
Amitabha appears in a double role in Shikar, a good guy and a bad guy. “Sharon and me have been friends for a long time. I readily agreed to his script and he came across as a very sensible director who knows what he’s doing,” says the leading man who had Shudhu Tomar Jonyo also releasing on December 1 and is now busy with Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Two Boys and A Girl (working title).
Shikar is inspired by a case from the police files. “Like in Raat Barota Paanch, Shikar has also been given a stylised visual treatment with a warm yellow tone,” says Sharon who has penned the lyrics for the three songs in the film. Babul Supriyo, Shreya Ghoshal, Kumar Sanu and Jojo have lent their voice to the tracks.
The film also stars June, Shantilal Mukherjee, Rajesh Sharma and Kanchan Mullick.
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| Style bhai: Fame X participant Rohit with host Sophie |
The second season of Fame Gurukul is well underway in the form of Fame X on SAB TV. And just like last year’s Qazi Tauqeer, who went on to win Fame Jodi with Ruprekha Banerjee, the new season has found a flamboyant participant in Rohit Raj Sinha. A talented singer and a great dancer, Rohit believes in seizing any opportunity to be in the limelight. Very filmi in his antics, he wants to be a star and believes that this platform will ensure stardom. But he is yet to find favour with the judges like Palash Sen and Sowmya Raoh. Even the other students don’t like him much. Therein lies the similarity between Rohit and Qazi.
Time will tell whether Rohit will last the distance like Qazi.
The desecration of Ambedkar’s statue and the Dalit rampage may lend special significance to Jabbar Patel’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. “The film focuses on the non-violence Ambedkar preached, something I hope people will take note of,” said Patel during a special preview at Star theatre on November 2. The Rs 8.5 crore film was produced by NFDC and the Maharashtra government to coincide with Ambedkar’s birth centenary. It will be screened across India, in nine languages on December 6.
The film under the banner of Bhaghyshree Enterprises and Entertainment Ltd, will do well, proclaimed Patel, who had distinguished himself in plays like Ghasiram Kotwal. “In the south Mammooty (as Ambedkar) is a superhero. In central India the attraction of Ambedkar and Mammooty is hard to resist and in the north people worship Ambedkar,” said Patel.
The film which took five years of research was sparked off by Patel’s visit to Columbia University where Ambedkar had studied from 1913-1916 and been exposed to the problem of black students. The film was shot on a 10-acre set at Film City designed by Nitin Desai, which “effectively projects the changing scenario in India, America and UK” across half a century from Ambedkar’s boyhood in the early 1900s to 1956 when he converted to Buddhism.
“It is a period film done with a lot of pain,” said Patel, who is finishing two other documentaries on Kumar Gandharva and Shiv Kumar Sharma.
A national convention on theatre, audio-visual, acoustics and lighting, called TAAL 2006, honoured Arijit Dutta of Priya Entertainment Private Limited with the TAAL Best Single Screen Entrepreneur award, at a conference held on Pragati Maidan in Delhi from December 1 to 3.
“Our endeavour at converting the Krishti Theatre auditorium in Memari into a single screen and installing another one at Star Theatre earned us recognition at TAAL 2006,” said Dutta.
Priya Entertainment is the distributor for SPE, Paramount, Shringar, Star Entertainment, Multimedia Multivision, UTV and Subi Samuel Movies with an exhibition section that includes Priya cinema, Star Theatre, Gitanjali (Bolpur), Krishti (Memari), Annapurna (Sonarpur) and Vidyasagar (Guskara).
