What are the themes of the film?

Mayar Jonjal has several themes running parallel, like its two stories that run parallel, meet for a while and then diverge again. We did start off with two stories from Manik Bandopadhyay, but then our film takes place in 2018-2019. It soon took on a completely different life of its own. At one level it examines social behaviours on the fringes of our urban landscape, behaviours that border on the criminal. On the other side it looks at the impossibility of holding things together… in relationships, faith, in human exchanges. The processes that bring in irredeemable destruction. It has a larger parable of man’s relationship with his/her surroundings….

How did the idea for the film come to you?

It was triggered by one short story by Manik Bandopadhyay… then we started working on it, and as always, it started taking on a life of its own. Manik Bandopadhyay is probably the most troubling and searing Bengali author we have had in the last 100 years. It’s rare that we see his stuff done on celluloid any more. Probably not coincidental.

Tell us about the cast?

Apart from Ritwick Chakraborty, there is Chandreyee Ghosh, Bratya Basu, Paran Bandopadhyay, Kamalika Banerjee, Amit Saha, Saoli Chattopadhyay from here and Aupee Karim, Shohel Mondal, Wahida Mallik Jolly and Mostafizur Shahin from Dhaka.

What makes Ritwick such a special actor?

Ritwick doesn’t need much. He needs triggers. The right kind of narrative and emotional triggers. I have been working with him and knowing him for a while now. We do that quietly in our peaceful way. Once he knows the grain, the actual work needs minor guidance. It’s a lot of peace that we share while working. In this particular film we were after a certain kind of minimalism. Of doing as less as possible. He took to that like a fish in a lake.

Mayar Jonjal is an Indo-Bangladesh joint venture film. What are the pros and cons of such a joint venture?

The obvious cons are the paperwork, red-tapism, the unending maze of rules and the time it takes to trudge through all this. Luckily we had good coordination and understanding on both sides. So it was difficult but we managed finally. The pros are numerous. First of all you get to access a much larger pool of talent. The acting talent in Bangladesh has not really been explored here properly. In our film, Aupee Karim, who is a very renowned actress there, will be a major discovery for the audience in West Bengal. Besides, if it’s not a full-fledged mainstream film but at the same time you want to compete internationally, it makes sense to distribute the budget and take advantage of the markets on both sides of the border.