The unrest in Bangladesh has handed Bengal’s ruling Trinamul a surprise victory that will help the party retain its hold over the local film industry.
Filmmakers from Bengal can no longer hop to the neighbouring country and shoot their films and OTT shows till the situation normalises in Bangladesh. They will have to follow the diktats of the Trinamul-controlled Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India.
While the students were on the warpath in the streets of Dhaka and the other cities and towns in Bangladesh, a Calcutta-based filmmaker fought his own battle with the federation that required the intervention of chief minister Mamata Banerjee to settle the dispute.
The filmmaker Rahool Mukherjee, who was disbarred from shooting, returned to the floors with his next feature a day after Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country, leaving behind a steady stream of violence and uncertainty. The film is scheduled for a Durga Puja release.
“Karo poush maas, karo sarbonash [One man’s poison is another man’s medicine]? No. We want peace to return to Bangladesh,” said Swarup Biswas, president of the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India and younger brother of state power minister and Mamata’s close aide Aroop Biswas.
Since the change of guard in Bengal 13 years ago, the Biswas brothers have controlled the local film industry, at one point of time helped by a very big production house in Calcutta. Many of the local film stars have joined the Trinamul bandwagon over the years and made it to the state Assembly and the Parliament as MLAs and MPs.
Insiders say Swarup Biswas, a social worker who owns an interior design company, has been calling the shots for over a decade thanks to the backing of his elder sibling. Even the BJP, which opened two organisations to deal with the ‘Trinamulisation’ of the film industry, had to bite the dust.
Over the years the Biswas brothers have been accused of having their say in every aspect of filmmaking including assigning make-up persons for the artistes and calling off technicians and support staff for rallies and meetings organised by the ruling party.
“These things do not happen in any other industry, whether Mumbai or Chennai or Hyderabad,” said an actor who did not want to be named because he feared losing out on assignments.
“He has never been part of any film unit, neither does he have any understanding of the craft of filmmaking yet filmmakers have to bow down to him just because he belongs to the ruling party.”
These shouts and murmurs are not new. In 2017, Trinamul MP and actor Dev had said he would take up the matter with the chief minister after the federation demanded an extra hand be included in the unit travelling to Turkey for the shooting of one of his films.
Other filmmakers who have firmly sided with the Trinamul over the years, attending government and party events too, have spoken sometimes in public and most often in hushed tones about the Biswas brothers.
Last month, Rahul Mukherjee was singled out by Swarup Biswas for travelling to Bangladesh to shoot a portion of another film that he is working on with technicians from the neighbouring country.
As punishment, the federation had barred Mukherjee from shooting for three months. Though the Directors’ Guild stood by the filmmaker, when Mukherjee went on the floors on July 27, not as the director but as a creative producer, no technician had turned up and kept stars like Prosenjit Chatterjee waiting.
Trinamul MP and actor Dev, Trinamul MLA and filmmaker Raj Chakraborty and veteran filmmaker Gautam Ghosh were among those who spoke in favour of the director and requested the chief minister’s intervention.
Though Mamata gave the green signal to the filmmaker to resume shooting on July 30, the federation finally gave the nod on Monday night.
On Tuesday morning, Mukherjee stood at his designated place behind the camera at a south Calcutta studio with actor Anirban Bhattacharya. Prosenjit Chatterjee was not included in Tuesday’s schedule.
“Whether I have to shoot in Madagascar or Cyprus is nobody’s business,” said filmmaker Anik Datta.
“As a filmmaker it is my prerogative where I want to shoot. The so-called rules are absurd. If I have to shoot abroad, the logical way of doing things would be to hire local hands. Here, the question comes up, why should the ruling party and the state at all get involved in the shooting of a film? Sadly things have been in such a state here for a long time now.”
Datta said he wished for peace to return to Bangladesh soon. “We have a shared culture and language. Films from both the Bengals could have benefitted if efforts were made to integrate the Calcutta-Dhaka market.”
Filmmaker Kamaleswar Mukherjee refused to comment on whether the developments in Bangladesh would help the Biswas brothers tighten their grip over the industry. “Right now we are all hoping for peace to return to Bangladesh. It is too early to comment on anything else. Once the situation normalises, everything else can be discussed,” he said.
Used to criticism hurled at him over more than a decade now, Swarup Biswas said there was enough work in Calcutta.
“Two big Hindi serials are being shot here. Two more are in the pipeline. I cannot share the details now. Many filmmakers have shown interest in shooting their projects here. I would like both the Bengals to work in tandem,” Biswas told The Telegraph Online.