It’s a woman’s world in Debarati Bhowmick’s ‘Najarbandi’

Imagine a full-length Bengali feature film with only female characters. Confused? Well, in director Debarati Bhowmick’s new Bengali film ‘Najarbandi’, women take the lead. In the Bengali crime thriller, there would be no male characters. In the movie, everyone, from criminals to police officers, is a woman.

The director has roped in some of the best actresses in Bengali cinema, including Rituparna Sengupta, Madhumita Sarkar, Anindita Bose, Rajnandini Paul and Sohag Sen for ‘Najarbandi’. Rituparna is a painter. Madhumita and Rajnandini take on negative roles. Anindita is a cop and Sen plays Rituparna’s mother.

In today’s digital era, our smartphones have become inseparable. Yet do we realise the potential dangers lurking within this device? The financial threat it poses is significant. Through ‘Najarbandi’, the director hopes to shed light on the dark side of cybercrime.

Of course, it is a challenge for the director, who is all set to make a first-of-its-kind Bengali film where only female characters will rule the screen. “Najarbandi is a commercial film, where I picked a few female characters to convey the film’s narrative. That raises the question, though: Why just women? As a female director, I felt it was my duty to portray to the viewers that women can also perform flawlessly in combat sequences, commit white-collar crimes, ride bikes just like their male counterparts or create tension or toxicity in romantic relationships,” said Debarati, who had earlier directed ‘Kantataar’.