Veteran Indian cinema icon Sharmila Tagore returns to Bengali cinema after a 14-year hiatus with Suman Ghosh’s Puratawn (The Ancient), which recently had its India premiere at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. The film shows Tagore as an elderly woman battling memory loss.

Rituparna Sengupta’s Bhavna Aaj O Kal has produced Puratawn, while the actress herself has played Sharmila’s daughter, Ritika. In the film, she and her husband (played by Indraneil Sengupta) return to her ancestral home in West Bengal to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday. However, the occasion is marked by an unexpected revelation — her mother’s cognitive decline. This discovery forces Ritika to confront the reality of her mother’s fading memories.

Sharmila Tagore, whose illustrious career has spanned decades, expressed her excitement at returning to Bengali cinema after such a long hiatus. “Doing a Bengali film after so many years, to speak the language again, to perform in one’s own mother tongue — that was the reason why I said yes to this film,” she confided during the Q&A after the screening at MAMI.

Director Suman Ghosh, who has previously worked with the likes of Soumitra Chatterjee and Aparna Sen, admits to being awestruck by Tagore’s face, and this led him to write a film for her. “Sharmila Ji’s face is a tapestry of life. It has so much grace and mystery. I had this idea of a film with her but at that time she wasn’t doing any films, so I kept it on the backburner. But then Gulmohar happened and I thought, here is my chance,” Suman shared.

Talking about the subject of the film the Kadambari director revealed that the idea of the film was not born from personal experience, but he had seen people around him struggle with aged parents suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia. “They always try to correct them or make them recollect memories forcefully. I feel they should let them be. Let them live in their world. My film is about their world,” he said.

Actor-producer Rituparna shared the story of how Sharmila came on board for the project. The Tollywood star recalled that Sharmila had once confided in her about wanting to do a Bengali film. “But the script has to be good,” the legendary actress had emphasised.

Rituparna had passed this information to Suman, who was to meet Sharmila at an event in the US the following month. However, the first draft of the script had mentioned the 75th birthday of the protagonist, which Sharmila insisted be changed to 80th, possibly to echo herself turning 80 this December.

Suman also recounted how despite getting dates from his cast members, he was on the verge of cancelling the shoot because he didn’t get his desired location: “For me, the mansion is also a character in the film. I had told my EP, if I don’t get the dates for the mansion, I won’t shoot”. Rituparna stepped in, pulled some strings, and finally the shoot began in December last year.

Speaking about working with Sharmila, Indraneil Sengupta said, “She is the epitome of grace. I consider myself fortunate that I was part of her comeback film in Bengali cinema.”