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| Raater Shiuli |
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| Roopkathar Jibon |
The budgets are much smaller than the big-screen versions. Exotic locales and song-and-dance sequences are out of the picture, too. Yet, telefilms in Bengali are drawing the best of actors across generations ? Soumitra Chatterjee to Parambrata Chatterjee, Supriya Debi to Sudipa Basu ? and directors veteran and newcomer.
The third Bangla Telefilm Festival, being jointly organised by Calcutta Film Festival and Artistes? Forum, gets underway on Friday at Nandan II, showcasing a selection of 20 Bengali telefilms screened over the past one year on the telly.
?We ask the Bengali channels to send in their entries, after which a panel comprising authors, musicians and other artistes views them and shortlists 20 for screening,? says actress Rwita Datta Chakraborty, who is also convener of the festival and a member of Artistes? Forum.
?Highlights include the director of every film being introduced before the show by a fellow director and an interaction between the audience and the cast after the show,? adds Datta Chakraborty. The viewers will also be given forms to record their feedback on the film. ?Based on audience input and our jury?s assessment, we will screen the top few films at the Calcutta Film Festival.?
The list of selected films this year comprises seven from Tara Bangla, five each from ETV Bangla and Akash Bangla, and three from Zee Bangla. They will be shown between July 23 and 31 at Nandan II. The inaugural programme on Friday will see the screening of Satyajit Ray?s Rabindranath.
?Telefilms occupy a very important position in our programming,? says Chhanda Guha of Tara Bangla. ?We have focussed particularly on telefilms in the past two years and at last year?s festival, seven of the 11 films we had sent in were chosen for screening.? Tara has a budget of Rs 1.6 lakh for each film.
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The duration and budget allow for experimentation and interesting themes, besides providing opportunities to newcomers. Like Sushil Ray?s Dinante on Zee Bangla that brings Soumitra and Sabitri Chatterjee back together again.
?The film is based on a story that appeared in Desh, about two people finding love at the fag end of their lives,? says Ray, an engineer who debuts with Dinante. The script appealed to the two stars so much, he says, that the budget of Rs 1.4 lakh was hardly a constraint. ?I know I won?t get Rs 25-30 lakh for a feature film,? Ray admits. ?But I?m happy to realise some of my dreams through the telefilm format.?
Or, for instance, Roopkathar Jibon, directed by Sourav Sarengi and aired on Tara. Outlined by author Nabaneeta Dev Sen, the film finds the protagonist (played by Sabyasachi Chakraborty) returning from abroad after years to get reacquainted with a childhood friend (Anusua Majumdar). Both have had failed marriages and wonder whether falling in love with each other is a good idea.
?We initially thought that after being screened a couple of times on television, not many would buy tickets to watch the telefilms again in a theatre,? says director Kaushik Ganguly, whose Palatak, aired on ETV Bangla, is one of the 20 films being shown. ?But almost all the shows in the past fests have been house-full.?
Ganguly feels a fest such as this ? ?the only one in the country? ? is a big step for popularising the genre. ?People were not getting anything from Bengali feature films when telefilm offered them meaningful cinema.?
According to Debashish Chowdhury of Akash, ?The channels are always competing with each other. This offers a rare opportunity to share the same platform and help a common cause. Akash beams a telefilm every Sunday evening.
Commercial avenues are opening up as well. ?We are making DVDs of the films and selling them to NRIs abroad. We saw a good response at Banga Sammelan this year,? says Tara?s Chhanda Guha.
