A film on Tagore’s story to be screened at Cannes

A film on Rabindranath Tagore’s story is all set to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival’s. It will be screened in the Marche du Film section in the festival. Aneek Chaudhuri, a 24-year-old Kolkata boy has made a film that expresses the simplicity of Rabindranath Tagore through the complex style of Salvador Dali. Marche du Film is the business counterpart of the coveted festival and is considered one of the largest film markets in the world. This 143-minute film, shot largely at a palatial house in Canning in South 24-Parganas district, apart from Kolkata and New Delhi, has been scheduled to be screened May17, the opening day, as part of producer Alder and Associates Entertainment’s line-up at the festival. The film, titled Streer Potro (The Wife’s Letter), is loosely themed on Tagore’s famous short story of the same name. It was shot in about 12 days and at a budget of Rs 10 lakh. As per the report published in Hindustan Times, “The text of Streer Potro has been loosely used as the plot but the form of surrealism dominates the work. Protagonist is named X and he is trying to relate himself to a particular constant, which he is failing to find,” Chaudhuri said. According to him, the story in the film revolves around the central idea that ‘mathematics is never sufficient to prove the validity of verbal language and emotions’. The director describes the film as ‘Harsh, dark, sarcastic, sensuous and painful’. “To put it simple, emotions are better deciphered when not calculated. Manipulations cannot compensate for emotions,” he said. Originally from Kolkata, this director shifted to ew Delhi for a corporate job which he quit for his love for films. Premiered at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in October last year, the film was also screened at Hamilton Film Festival in Canada in November and the European Film Market during Berlinale in February this year. “The film actually tries to find a way of balancing between life’s complexities and its basic simplicity. Here, Dali’s surrealism represents the complexities through which I have tried to reach the life’s simplicities that Tagore unearthed and hailed,” informed Chaudhari who is a film graduate.