Team Hubba recently got together at INOX, Quest Mall, to celebrate the 25-day run of the Bratya Basu film in the theatres. Hubba is based on the story of Shyamal Das alias Hubba, a notorious criminal who operated in the industrial belts of Howrah and Hooghly since the ’90s. Bangladeshi actor Mosharraf Karim plays Hubba. The duo previously had worked together in Basu’s directorial titled Dictionary, which had won a lot of accolades.

“We are overwhelmed by the response we received in both countries but the response in Bangladesh left us awed. The film was released in more than 100 theatres in Bangladesh. More than 100 members of the media were present and the press conference took place across two theatres. We all know that Mosharraf Karim is a very popular and nuanced actor from Bangladesh but we were blown away by the sheer euphoria that surrounded him and the release of his film. We are happy for the future of Bengali language films,” said producer Firdausul Hasan.

When Mosharraf first heard about the film, he was quite intrigued by the character. “For an actor to be able to enjoy his role and what he’s doing there must be a wide spectrum of to-dos to touch upon. Unless the flavour is there, it’s no fun. I found in Hubba something which irked me. It’s a rare occurrence that you get to play a character like Hubba in a film. It was the dynamism of the character that drove me to play the role of the gangster. I have done theatre, television programmes as well as films, but the experience of shooting Hubba, owing mainly to the characters and the plot, stands out altogether,” said Mosharraf.

Looking back, the primary challenge during the shoot of the film was to shoot outdoors, in the streets and alleys in a congested area like Hooghly, from where Hubba operated his crime ring. “We did not shoot any of those scenes in a set or studio. As we stuck to the script very closely, we had to shoot in places like dark and narrow bylanes, dingy slums, by the banks of the Ganga, a crematorium, a factory, by the railway tracks and so on. To shoot in real locations was difficult, as we had to contend with the weather, the public, traffic and many other problems,” said Bratya.