Parambrata Chatterjee to explore personality of Soumitra Chatterjee in 'Abhijaan'

Parambrata Chatterjee, who directed Soumitra Chattopadhyay's biopic Abhijaan for the big screen, described it as "like being led to the Master's life by the Master himself."  Parambrata revealed that documenting the thespian's existence in the form of a biopic had been a long-held dream of his. "As things fell in place, I signed Soumitra jethu to portray himself on screen. Thus, Abhijaan begun. It remains as one of his last works on celluloid,” said Chatterjee on Friday, March 26, 2021, on the occasion of the trailer launch of the film.

Parambrata Chatterjee's tribute to Soumitra Chatterjee

"The history of Indian cinema remains incomplete without mentioning the name of Shri Soumitra Chattopadhyay. I am truly indebted to him for agreeing to not even just allow me to make this movie but also act in it. His demise is truly unfortunate and a major loss for the film and theatre fraternity," Parambrata said. "I have shared some wonderful moments while working on Abhijaan. It was like being guided to the life of the Master by the Master himself. So many unknown facets came up during our conversations."

Jisshu Sengupta played the younger Soumitra in the film, while the 84-year-old played himself in the latter stages of his life. The cast includes a slew of well-known actors from the Bengali film industry. Sohini Sarkar plays Madhabi Mukhopadhyay, Rudranil Ghosh as close friend and talented character actor Rabi Ghosh, Padmanabha Dasgupta as renowned Anup Kumar, and Tuhina Das as Soumitra's co-star Waheeda Rehman, while Paoli Dam plays diva of the 1960s and 1970s and Soumitra's contemporary Suchitra Sen. Furthermore, the film also has Dulal Lahiri as legendary actor Chhabi Biswas in the 1960s, Q a. k.a. Kaushik Mukherjee as Soumitra's advisor Satyajit Ray in films, Debshankar Halder as Shishir Bhadhuri, Anindita Bose as friend and confidant Aparna Sen, Tridha Choudhury as Sharmila Tagore, Basabdatta Chatterjee as spouse Deepa Chattopad.

Talking about capturing the essence of a time gone by especially when the world was just emerging from a lockdown, Parambrata was noted saying, “Capturing the era and the mannerisms of other renowned personalities were quite a challenge but my entire cast played their roles to perfection.” A voiceover in the trailer was heard saying, “You are not merely an actor, you are a poet, a playwright, and a politically conscious personality. You are all in one.” Parambrata Chatterjee even revealed what he sought to achieve through the film. “I have sought to bring out the journey in Soumitra Chatterjee's life in this film. Apart from his acting career, snippets of his private life and his life's adventure has been brought forth in the movie which I loath to call commercial," he said.

(Image Source: Parambrata Chatterjee Instagram)

(With inputs from PTI)