‘Never thought my film would release alongside Rajkumar Hirani’

This Christmas holds special significance for director Avijit Sen, as his latest Bengali film ‘Pradhan’, starring Dev, has released simultaneously with Rajkumar Hirani’s highly anticipated Bollywood film ‘Dunki’, featuring Shah Rukh Khan.

Typically, directors might be concerned about competing with a major Bollywood production, fearing a potential reduction in theater showings for their own film. However, Sen, already known as the ‘hit machine’ for his successful Bengali films like ‘Tonic’ and ‘Projapoti’, views this simultaneous release as a blessing. He considers releasing his film alongside his mentor (Hirani) as one of the most significant moments in his career. “I never thought the day would come when my film would be in theaters alongside Raju sir, my mentor. This is truly one of the best opportunities of my life,” said the director of popular non-fiction shows like ‘Dadagiri’, ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ and ‘Didi No 1’.

Hirani has been his mentor and Sen has assisted him in the ‘Munnabhai’ films and worked during the early stages of ‘3 Idiots’. Drawing inspiration from Hirani, Sen has cultivated a skill for narrating human interest stories and places immense value on the script in filmmaking. “Raju sir knows everything that I am doing. We communicate over messages. This is a blessing that my film is releasing alongside ‘Dunki’,” said Sen.

It was the script of ‘Pradhan’, which demanded an ensemble star cast including Paran Bandopadhyay, Mamata Shankar, Soham, Koneenica Banerjee, Anirban Chakrabarti and others. “As a filmmaker, I always want to tell different kinds of stories. ‘Pradhan’ is very different from ‘Tonic’ and ‘Projapoti’,” he said. Sen always prefers collaborating with a familiar crew and he did the same with ‘Pradhan’. “I believed in teamwork since my television days,” he said.