A still from Piyalir Password

Piyalir Password, featuring Rituparna Sengupta, released on April 4, not in Menoka, but Maryland. The thriller, which also features Roopa Ganguly, Kaushik Sen and Sabyasachi Chakraborty, is the first Bengali film to be shot entirely in the US, say its makers. Now being released across the US, its next stops are Canada and the UK, before it comes to Calcutta in July.

The film is a fast-paced corporate thriller set in the biotechnology hub of Washington DC. It’s the brainchild of Raj Basu, a Jadavpur University alumnus now living in the US. “I have grown up watching Hollywood suspense thrillers. And I always wanted to make a film on Bengalis,” says Basu, whose first film Wings of Hope was in English and explored the lives of first-generation Indian Americans.

Asked why he decided to make a film in Bengali, that too in the US, Basu said: “After two decades, this has become my place. But I’m also a Bengali. In Piyalir Password I have married these two identities of mine, set in the backdrop of the NRI Bengali community.”

But why did he choose to release it on foreign shores first? “I am familiar with the set-up here (the US) as well as in Canada. But I really want to take PP to Calcutta as well… having my film release in Priya and Nandan is a dream.”

The Center for Social Change, which is involved in developmental disabilities movement in the US, is the main presenter of Piyalir Password. “The response in Maryland was overwhelming,” said Basu.

“The film in many ways is a coming of age of the Bengali NRI community. Movies like Anuranan, Bong Connection and Antaheen had the NRI Bengali element and did well overseas, and Basu says they paved the way for a film like Piyalir Password.

Rituparna said that she was attracted by the storyline. Roopa commended the crew and the cast for making the film on a tight budget.

The film says a lot about the currency of the Bengali films with contemporary urban themes among the NRI Bengalis.

It is not just about Bengalis living in the US. Piyalir PAssword has an ensemble cast, with American, Japanese, Russian, Bangladeshi and, of course, Indian actors. Basu, who stitched the film together with the help of 28 financers, hopes to attract the Non-Bengali Indian American as well as the Bangladeshi American. He is even hopeful of a Dhaka release for his film.

Bickram Ghosh, who scored the music, said it was challenging to create the sound for a Bengali film with an American setting, and he enjoyed it thoroughly. “I followed the visual diktat of the film and used music sparsely.”

For him, the underlying message of Piyalir Password is that the Bengali community is changing. “Today the Bengali in Calcutta and the Bengali in New York have far more things in common than 40 years back. We talk the same, dress the same, enjoy the same things and even think similarly.”