Young, independent filmmakers need to be encouraged: Soumitra Chatterjee

“If young and new directors are not encouraged to make their kind of cinema, how can we move on? I am always in favour of encouraging such film makers if the content is interesting and realistic” Soumitra said at the music launch of Bengali film “Bastob” on Tuesday.

The acting legend, who enacts the role of a newspaper baron, loosely based on the real life character of a Bengali anti-establishment media owner, said there is a trend in Bengali commercial cinema to explore the realistic genre.“This is commendable,” the “Charulata” actor said.

Asked about the similarity of the name “Bastob” with a Bollywood blockbuster and similar cases of Bengali films having the same title of previous Hindi hits, Soumitra said,

“Two films may bear the same name. A Bengali film may repeat the same title as of an earlier hit. So, what is the big deal?” 

“How will that cause any great harm to the industry!”, he commented.Director Shyamal Bose said a brief narration about the role was enough for a personality like Soumitra Chatterjee to grasp the layers of the character and an actor like him or Saswata Chatterjee will never differentiate between big time directors and lesser known ones in terms of giving best shot as the camera rolled.

“Soumitra kaku worked with me in five films. He had worked with the mastero in 16 films. In totality he had acted in around 400 films.

“So, when he agrees to work with a filmmaker like me, who is around same age of his son, it shows unlike the public perception of him being unapproachable he is exactly the opposite. But he is a man of few words, a sensitive man and a thinking actor with vast repertoire of knowledge and experience,” the filmmaker said.

“Unlike the out and out commercial Sanjay Dutt-starrer Hindi Vaastav, my film is entirely different and it is a non-mainstream film which talks about a girl’s rape and how she is stone walled by this society,” the director said.