Cabaret, a period drama set in Calcutta, tells a love story of cabaret dancer Miss Elina (played by Puja Banerjee) and a Naxalite militant Swarup (played by Satyam Bhattacharya) set against the backdrop of politics, social hierarchy, class struggle and human relationship.

Cabaret promises to be an emotional journey of a young girl from a remote village to claim the crown of the best cabaret dancer in Calcutta. Directed by Utsav Mukherjee, Cabaret stars Puja Banerjee, Satyam Bhattacharya, and Shantilal Mukherjee in lead roles. Cabaret is set to stream on Addatimes from January 26.

For the first time, actress Puja Banerjee will be seen playing the role of a cabaret dancer. “I always wanted to play a character like Miss Elina. Cabaret has got a very beautiful love story in it. As an actor, you get very little opportunity where the script demands the best of you. Miss Elina has quite a lot of shades which you will soon see when Cabaret releases,” says Puja.

“Miss Elina comes to terms with different people and situations that not only shape her life but also determine the courses of others around her. It’s a story of love, passion, family, emotion, politics, revenge and most importantly of different human conditions,” says director Utsav Mukherjee.

Character Stories

Khushi/ Miss Elina (Puja Banerjee)

Khushi Saha, a simple girl from a lower middle-class Bengali family from Dinajpur in the mid-1960s lost her elder brother Kinjal, who got directly involved in the Naxalite movement and eventually got killed in a police encounter. Khushi’s father Sushobhan, unable to bear the irrespirable loss of his son and also the immense poverty caused by the never-ending lockout of his factory took his own life. Left with a widowed mother, a young sister and a terrible financial crisis, Khushi set out on a journey to Calcutta to change the course of their lives without knowing what awaits her. Life surprises her as she is soon noticed by Vijay Shah, the owner of a famous Park Street hotel, who gambles on her and turns her into the sensational cabaret dancer of Calcutta. Khushi becomes Miss Elina.

Swarup (Satyam Bhattacharya)

A Naxalite militant, on the run, is compelled to take shelter in a posh hotel under the disguise of a hotel bearer. The owner of the hotel thoroughly despises and hates the contemporary youth fighting against the establishment for their ideologies and the freedom for the people. Swarup, suppressed under an obligation and the fear of cops somehow carries on till he meets the sensational dancer of the hotel Miss Elina. Swarup is firstly floored by her beauty and smitten by her aura but gradually he gets to know the real person behind the prolific image of Miss Elina; a girl who is simple, innocent, vulnerable and trapped in the hinges of socio-economic structure. They fall in love.

Vijay Shah (Shantilal Mukherjee)

Vijay Shah was the manager of the hotel Le Moulin Rouge back in the 1940s and 1950s when the hotel was owned by a British, David Attenborough. Shah desperately fell in love with a sensational cabaret dancer of that time called Edna Rosario but Edna ran away with her paramour leaving Shah dejected and heartbroken forever. Later in the 1960s Shah bought the hotel from David and after meeting Khushi, he decided to start cabaret all over again. He invests time, money, resources on Khushi to turn her into Miss Elina, a contemporary counterpart of Edna. Life turns out differently as Elina falls in love with Swarup, a young man he once gave shelter out of his gratefulness towards his father.