Trailer for biopic on Soumitra out now
The trailer of the much-anticipated biopic on thespian Soumitra Chattopadhyay is finally out.
While the trailer was unveiled on Friday the biopic titled "Abhijaan," is slated for release later this year, its actor-director Parambrata Chatterjee said.
Prior to his death in November last year following post-Covid complications, Soumitra played out his own role in a part of the biopic.
Parambrata said "Soumitra jethu's participation in the movie was like being guided to the life of the master by the master himself," a fulfilment of the former's long-held dream of capturing the late actor's life in a film.
"As things fell in place, I signed Soumitra `jethu'' to portray himself on the screen. Thus, ''Abhijaan'' began taking shape. It remains one of his last works on the celluloid," Parambrata said post the trailer launch.
"The history of Indian cinema remains incomplete without Soumitra Chattopadhyay. I am indebted to him for agreeing to not even just allow me to make this movie but also act in it," Parambrata said.
While the late actor portrayed himself in the role during the later phase of his life, actor Jisshu Sengupta has essayed younger Soumitra in "Abhijaan".
An array of acclaimed other actors from Kolkata's Bangla film industry are also in the cast to recreate the roles of many of the actors with whom Soumitra acted in his more than six-decade long career.
While Paoli Dam will be seen as Suchitra Sen, an acclaimed actress of 1960s and 70s, Sohini Sarkar will portray Madhabi Mukhopadhyay while Rudranil Ghosh is playing the role of Soumitra''s friend and versatile character actor Rabi Ghosh. Padmanabha Dasgupta as Anup Kumar, Tuhina Das as Soumitra's co-star Waheeda Rehman in Satyajit Ray's work "Abhijaan" will also be in the cast.
Veteran Dulal Lahiri will play the role of Chhabi Biswas and Kaushik Mukherjee will be seen in the role of Satyajit Ray, Soumitra''s mentor. Debshankar Halder will be seen as theatre personality Shishir Bhadhuri, Anindita Bose in the role of actress Aparna Sen while Tridha Choudhury will be seen as Sharmila Tagore. Basabdatta Chatterjee as Deepa Chattopadhyay, Soumitra's wife and Sohini Sengupta as his daughter Poulomi Bose will also be seen in the biopic.
Bangla cinema superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee will be seen in a special role while Parambrata also has an appearance. It may be recalled that Soumitra has acted in films with Prosenjit as well as the latter's father Biswajit.
Recalling the shooting of the biopic, Parambrata said "capturing the era and the mannerisms of other renowned personalities were quite a challenge but my entire cast played their roles to perfection."
"I have sought to bring out the journey in Soumitra jethu's life in Abhijaan. Apart from his acting career, snippets of his private life and his life's adventure has been brought forth in the movie which I loath to call commercial," according to the director.
The film seeks to explore Soumitra multifaceted personality as an actor, poet, painter and a theatre personality as well as one of Bengal's cultural icons.
National award winning composer Prabuddha Banerjee has done the music for the movie while the screenplay and dialogues are by Padmanabha Dasgupta, Parambrata Chatterjee and Shubhendu Sen.