Abhijaan 2015 – Bengali Film Festival In Dubai | Manoj Michigan’s 89

No food post? Well, a temporary break to talk about films – Bengali films. After all, films do provide food for thought, don’t they? For all those readers who are joining me in my journey now… here’s an introduction to ‘Abhijaan 2015′, the 2nd Bengali Film Festival Dubai that’s taking place from the 5th-7th February, 2015 at the Knowledge Village. This year, Abhijaan 2015 sees a fabulous line up of 7 Bengali films with English subtitles – Chotushkone (Srijit’s Mukherji’s masterpiece thriller, starring stalwarts like Aparna Sen, Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Goutam Ghose, Kaushik Ganguly, Parambrata Chatterjee), Teenkahon (Bauddhayan Mukherji’s debut directorial venture starring Rituparna Sengupta, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Suman Mukhopadhyay, Ashish Vidyarthi), Byomkesh Phire Elo (Directed by Anjan Dutt, starring Abir, Saswata, Usashi), Bharate (directed by Anindya Ghosh, starring Rituparna Sengupta, Arunima Ghosh), 89 (directed by Manoj Michigan starring Saswata Chatterjee, Raima Sen and Shataf Figar), Ebar Shobor (directorial venture of Arindam Sil, starring Swastika, Saswata, Abir) and Ek Fali Rod (directed by Atanu Ghosh… starring Dhritiman Chatterji, Ritwik, Aparajita). While more info and snippets of the movies can be found in Facebook, grab your tickets now from platinumlist.net/tickets & itp.net/tickets.

The countdown begins! #Abhijaan2015, the 2nd #BengaliFilmFestivalDubai frm 5th-7th Feb… http://t.co/WgGcLgHmtl & http://t.co/y1iRRMICkE

— #Abhijaan2015 (@AbhijaanBFF) January 27, 2015

“@bettyboodubai: @dmd_dxb I’m going next Friday @IshitaUnblogged is my guide to which movies to watch :)” @AbhijaanBFF More info on Facebook

— Ishita B Saha (@IshitaUnblogged) January 30, 2015

So what is 89 all about?

The film is about a 26 year old psychiatrist Dr. Purba Bannerjee who comes to terms with her identity by exploring her past. Dr. Purba Bannerjee, a psychiatrist has an unexplained trauma that has been haunting her since her childhood. A chance encounter with a terrorist introduces Purba to an anti-terrorist inspector, Anup Bhargava who helps her confront the cause of this problem… What happens when Purba’s search for a cure brings her face to face with her nightmare… an unstable but intelligent serial-killer, Sabyasachi Pal? The film canvases a myriad range of emotions through the elements of obsession, hatred, mind-games and a hidden underplay of numerology. It shuffles through time, trauma, psychological warfare, murders and finally retribution.

Two genres excite me the most – Comedy and Thriller. With Damadol, I ventured into situational comedy and after that I wanted to make a gripping thriller… my inspiration being Hollywood thrillers like Seven, The Call, Shutter Island etc. These films were edge of the seat gripping thrillers where the script was the winner. That is what I hope I have achieved with 89… The Script leading the film to its conclusion.  I have always believed that the market of a film totally depends on two things in that order. One is the packaging where the story, the way it is presented and its characters living it, makes a viewer decide whether it is a good film or not. Second is the marketing, promotion of the product that tempts the viewer to go to the cinemas to watch it once. There is a risk with this genre… but no risk..no gain I guess. A good psychological crime thriller will always keep the viewer guessing, questioning, analysing the turn of events that it unfolds. The moment it becomes predictable, boredom sets in. With 89, I hope, will not give the viewer a chance to look at his watch while viewing the film. Saswata, Shataf and Raima did not move while I was narrating the script to them for the first time. And they loved it.

While my previous post covers Teenkahon, this post captures some behind-the-scene angles of Manoj Michigan’s 89. You can join me over Twitter for all the films conversations that are happening right now.

Here’s the Director’s note… I have always wanted to make a gripping thriller with the usual elements of a haunting background score, morbid lighting and a mysterious feel of the characters. But the challenge was visualising a story to excite me…a screenplay that intelligently unfolds the story through layers of time and events. I did not want to show graphic details of murder, or the act of killing but wanted an underlying subtlety of death throughout the film and at the same time not compromising on the edge of the seat factor without which a thriller becomes redundant. I hope we have managed to reach close to this goal. So with 89, drama and mystery is just one of the ingredients if the film. Grab your tickets now for #Abhijaan2015!

Unblogging it all… Ishita

Tickets for Abhijaan 2015 are available at platinumlist.net/tickets & itp.net/tickets. Listen to SUNO 102.4 from 30th January until the 7th February and watch Zee Network for more updates.