Kolkata: Anik Dutta’s Satyajit Ray centenary tribute, “Aparajito”, will begin screening at Nandan this Friday in honour of the recently deceased director. Despite a written recommendation from the Nandan film selection committee, the movie was originally blocked from the venue following intervention from “higher authorities”. According to the committee, this controversial exclusion inadvertently sparked a trend at Nandan where officially recommended films were routinely dropped to make way for rejected ones that had members in the cast close to the earlier government.In addition, Dutta’s “Bhobisyoter Bhoot” (BB) will be screened at the venue from June 8 to 10. Producer Kalyanmoy Chatterjee explained their past reluctance: “We were against the idea of a separate screening committee to decide which films would be screened at Nandan. Anik had a reputation of not being in the good books of the earlier government. As a result, we never submitted ‘BB’ for a Nandan screening. However, Anik always believed that Nandan is the best place for a Bengali movie-going audience. I am happy that the film is being screened there.”Actor and BJP MLA Rudranil Ghosh told TOI: “The world of Bengali cinema and cine-lovers had wanted the Nandan screening of films that were wrongly dropped from there. I am glad that is happening now. I thank the new government for taking this initiative.”Unlike “BB”, “Aparajito “ was submitted for a Nandan screening in 2022, only to be met with a wall of silence. Producer Firdausul Hasan expressed his satisfaction that the new government is finally showing the film from June 5 to 7. “It was the only centenary tribute film to Ray that was made. Yet, it was not screened at Nandan,” Hasan noted.Backing this sentiment, cinematographer-director and screening committee member Premendu Bikas Chaki reiterated that the panel had unanimously praised “Aparajito” during its initial review. He emphasized that the cast and crew’s political affiliations never influence the selection process, pointing out that films featuring actors like Debdut Ghosh who support the Left had been approved in the past. “Recognizing the profound significance of screening a tribute to Ray at Nandan—an auditorium inaugurated by the maestro himself—we formally submitted our written approval. Despite our official recommendation, the film wasn’t screening. The then-CEO of Nandan verbally attributed the sudden cancellation to instructions from ‘authorities higher up’. The exact identity of the powerful figure who overruled the committee was never disclosed. I had personally reached out to director Anik Dutta to assure him that the screening committee was not responsible for rejecting his film,” Chaki said.This set a damaging precedent. “Subsequently, we saw our recommendations being ignored. We had repeatedly mentioned that Raajhorshee De’s ‘Saada Ronger Prithibi’ starring TMC councillor Ananya Banerjee didn’t merit screening at Nandan. Anyone can check out official records to see that we had mentioned our reservations. But our observations fell on deaf ears.”Director and committee member Sudeshna Roy also faced a similar rejection. Roy was supposedly already out of favour with the former minister for Information and cultural affairs, having been one of the 15 litigants who took legal action against Swarup Biswas’ Federation of Cine Technicians of Eastern India. “Her film, ‘Aapish’, failed to make the cut despite earning a favourable response from the rest of us in the screening committee,” Chaki said. No official reasons were provided, but many suspect the rejection was tied to the film’s cast—Sudipta Chakraborty and Kinjal Nanda—both of whom had been highly vocal during the RG Kar movement.
