Mimi Chakraborty, Soham Majumder to bring ghostly fun this winter

By now, everyone is aware of the recent social media controversy surrounding the sharing of halls among four Bengali films released during Durga Puja. What began as a scheduling conflict soon snowballed into a full-blown online war, with several members of the Bengali film fraternity jumping into the fray. Windows Production’s high-octane thriller ‘Raktabeej 2’ locked horns with Dev’s ‘Raghu Dakat’ and Prosenjit Chatterjee’s ‘Devi Chowdhurani’ and the clash made almost as many headlines as the films themselves. While the industry is still recovering from that storm, the winter lineup of Bengali films is already taking shape.

This season, ‘Windows Production’, celebrated for its family dramas, is planning to step into an all-new genre: horror comedy. Its upcoming film, ‘Bhanupriya Bhooter Hotel’, directed by Aritra Mukherjee and written by Zinia Sen, stars Mimi Chakraborty and Soham Majumder as one pair, with Bonny Sengupta and Swastika pairing up as the other.

Sharing the inspiration behind the story, Sen said, “Last June in Kalimpong, I was staying in an old colonial hotel with Nandita di (Nandita Roy) and Shiboprosad (Mukhopadhyay). During my solitary walks down the long, dimly lit corridors, I often wondered, ‘Are all those around me truly human?’ That unsettling thought stayed with me and that’s how the idea of ‘Bhanupriya Bhooter Hotel’ took shape. When I shared it with Nandita di, Shiboprosad and later Aritra, they instantly connected with it. The film goes beyond being just a horror comedy. It’s also a mirror to society, told through a blend of humour, fear and emotion."