The renaissance of Bengali cinema hinges on 'Angel Investors'

The Bengali film industry direly requires much-needed investment and passionate people to surge ahead. There is no dearth of talent or literature in Bengal. Only the industry needs fillips in the guise of angel investors who are passionate about the film's quality and wouldn't be thrust upon only on return on investment. Actor Parambrata Chattopadhyay and three times National Award-winning director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury echoed this at a panel discussion on Bengali film and the content organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce on November 6. A nip in the air and a relaxed ambience at a city hotel made the audience engrossed in the lively discussions anchored aptly by director Arindam Sil. Evergreen actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, percussionist and music composer Bickram Ghosh and filmmaker and writer Arijit Biswas were the other high-voltage panelists from the film and entertainment fraternity besides Aniruddha and Parambrata. Industrialists Sanjay Budhia, ex-President of ICC and Pradeep Sureka, President of ICC represented the corporate sector.

The moot point of the panel discussion was how to ensure the revival of the Bengali industry in the backdrop of the OTT platform that has risen to prominence during the spate of COVID-19, the greatest disruptor so far. Moderator Arindam Sil, the Chairperson of ICC's 'National Expert Committee on Entertainment' also rued the present state of the Bengali film industry while the south Indian film Industry is ruling the roost at this moment.

"South Indian films are running packed houses in Kolkata even at 7 am. Why Bengali movies will be behind?" lamented the noted film director who is planning to launch a mammoth project, the biggest project so far by him. Parambrata also pointed out that Malayalam and Kannad films have gone ahead in terms of budget and the average budget of their films is now Rs 15 to 20 crores. On the contrary, Bengali films are still made at a budget of Rs 75 lakhs to one crore which was the same scenario a decade ago.

"The OTT platforms like 'Amazon Prime' and 'Netflix' are not interested in Bengali content, which needs to change," sadly commented the young actor and director, who is making good content on OTTs.

Veteran actor Prosenjit Chatterjee argued saying good works are taking place in the Bengali film industry also.

"We are witnessing good work here also," he said, who feels that People like Aniruddha and Parambrata are making it big. "South Indian films took time to come to this state. They have a plan of action. Today, they are blockbusters but there was a time when a strike in the Telugu industry was there. I feel ups and downs are parts of life. However, we have 30 crore Bengalis scattered across the world. If only 10 crore Bengalis watch our films, the Bengali film industry would see sunshine."

Endorsing Prosenjit's view on it, Parambrata said, "The solution is to bring more and more Bengali audience and create quality driven big budget Bengali films with funding from 'Angel Investors'. This will draw the Bengali diaspora to Bengali films. The Bengali audience is exposed to quality films both Indian and international. We should also focus on developing ROI of our films to push our workers' rights."

Scriptwriter Arijit Biswas suggested an innovative plan on holding a contest on the 10 best scripts and solicited an investment of one crore from the corporates. He has written the script of the widely acclaimed Ayushmann Khurana and Tabu starrer 'Andhadhun' and more such scripts for Bollywood to be belted out by him. Arindam Sil strongly backed this proposal and even asked ICC for setting up the start-up of a script bank.

Maestro Bickram Ghosh clarified the present advantage of monetisation of the music industry in the digital era. "Gone are the days of cassettes and CDs. We should know how to monetise the music in the era of digital apps like 'Spotify' and 'gaana.com'." He's coming out with a music company funded by industrialists Mayank Jalan and Utsav Parekh.

"Film has its own language. Thus, we should focus on narrating stories, irrespective of their monetary returns because good and honest content will make way for profits. Businessmen always don't look for profits but for passion, which eventually converts into profits in the long run. Bengal is a mine of literature, so let's look out for passion in films," said Aniruddha.

The discussion turned towards a solution-centric approach with various suggestions from Arindam Sil, who urged for collaboration with Bangladesh under the intervention of the Government of India and coming out with a Bengali content-based OTT platform and paving the way for enhancing the audience base as well for enriching the film industry here.

"It's more Bangladesh than India, as there is huge talent in Bangladesh, where films like 'Hawa' have been taken by storm," he said.

He also urged developers to come up with single theatres with limited capacity across the state to bring back the masses to films from OTT platforms and television.

The freewheeling chat ended on a positive note by continuing such solution-centric discussions bringing all like-minded people and industry together. Prosenjit focused on enhancing the equity of the Bengali film industry by holding regular talks even on virtual platforms. Arindam urged on the holy nexus among the film fraternity, corporates and industry associations to accelerate the resurrection. All the panelists agreed to be part of the new form of entertainment committee of ICC to deliberate on the next plan of action.

Sanjay Budhia promised to bring out a white paper for the Bengali film industry which is yet to receive industry status.