The 1967 black and white classic Jaatiswar had mega star Uttam Kumar and Tanuja in the lead. The same characters are now reprised by Prosenjit Chatterjee and Jisshu Sengupta, but with a brand new storyline.
Jaatiswar is the story of Rohit, a Gujarati brought up in Bengal, who falls in love with a woman who is Bengali with a vengeance – Mahamaya Banerjee. She is obsessed with the Bengali language, hates using English words, loves Bengali poetry, songs and believes in the intellectual superiority of the race. Naturally, she rejects his proposal as he can’t even pronounce her name properly.
When further pushed, she sets a condition and challenges him to write, compose and sing a perfect Bengali song for her, upon which she would consider his proposal. After this, their paths diverge. Mahamaya becomes a RJ who works for a radio station which eventually is entrusted the responsibility of organising a rock concert involving bands from India and Bangladesh. Rohit meanwhile goes to Portugal to study colonial history, and decides to do it on Heynesman Antony, a Portuguese who was born in 19th Century Bengal, who learnt the Bengali language and went on to become of the leading minstrels of that time.
In his fieldwork, he meets a mysterious man, Kushawl Hajra in Chandannagore, Antony’s birthplace. He claims to be Antony’s reincarnation whose memory from the last birth is overpowering his present life memory at a fast rate leading to identity replacement. Rohit starts recording his narrative of his past life as Antony for his dissertation. From here we see a journey of two men separated by one and a half century – both learning an alien language and going on to write songs overcoming all odds, Rohit and Antony. How Rohit woos Mahamaya with the perfect Bengali song, and how Kushawl deals with his psychological disorder forms the rest of this musical-reincarnation drama-biopic -love story.
Talking about the film Chatterjee said, 'I’m really looking forward to the release of this film. Antony Firingee is an iconic character and I’m glad that I got an opportunity to play this character. The storyline however is entirely different from the earlier film. All I can say is that this film has a whole new surprise track weaved in the storyline. The soul of the film is same- it is a musical. The music of this film is divine and I have experimented a lot with my look. In fact, it is a very well researched look.'
The film is slated to release in more than 20 cities in India - Bombay, Pune, Thane, Vashi, Delhi, Bangalore, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Patna, Indore, Raipur, Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar and Chennai. Outside Bengal, the film will be released with English subtitles.
When: Premiering 17 January, pan India
Jaatiswar is the story of Rohit, a Gujarati brought up in Bengal, who falls in love with a woman who is Bengali with a vengeance – Mahamaya Banerjee. She is obsessed with the Bengali language, hates using English words, loves Bengali poetry, songs and believes in the intellectual superiority of the race. Naturally, she rejects his proposal as he can’t even pronounce her name properly.
When further pushed, she sets a condition and challenges him to write, compose and sing a perfect Bengali song for her, upon which she would consider his proposal. After this, their paths diverge. Mahamaya becomes a RJ who works for a radio station which eventually is entrusted the responsibility of organising a rock concert involving bands from India and Bangladesh. Rohit meanwhile goes to Portugal to study colonial history, and decides to do it on Heynesman Antony, a Portuguese who was born in 19th Century Bengal, who learnt the Bengali language and went on to become of the leading minstrels of that time.
In his fieldwork, he meets a mysterious man, Kushawl Hajra in Chandannagore, Antony’s birthplace. He claims to be Antony’s reincarnation whose memory from the last birth is overpowering his present life memory at a fast rate leading to identity replacement. Rohit starts recording his narrative of his past life as Antony for his dissertation. From here we see a journey of two men separated by one and a half century – both learning an alien language and going on to write songs overcoming all odds, Rohit and Antony. How Rohit woos Mahamaya with the perfect Bengali song, and how Kushawl deals with his psychological disorder forms the rest of this musical-reincarnation drama-biopic -love story.
Talking about the film Chatterjee said, 'I’m really looking forward to the release of this film. Antony Firingee is an iconic character and I’m glad that I got an opportunity to play this character. The storyline however is entirely different from the earlier film. All I can say is that this film has a whole new surprise track weaved in the storyline. The soul of the film is same- it is a musical. The music of this film is divine and I have experimented a lot with my look. In fact, it is a very well researched look.'
The film is slated to release in more than 20 cities in India - Bombay, Pune, Thane, Vashi, Delhi, Bangalore, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Patna, Indore, Raipur, Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar and Chennai. Outside Bengal, the film will be released with English subtitles.
When: Premiering 17 January, pan India