"Bedo made a lot of sacrifices for this film. He is the inventor of the sensor technology that we use in cameras now. He had a great career at NASA but he left it all for film making. He is aware that he is not even going to earn five per cent of what he used to earn there. So the moment he asked me to be part of the film, I immediately said yes," said Anurag, who has co-produced the film.
Bedabrata is making his Bollywood debut with the film, set against the backdrop of the Chittagong uprising in 1930s, where a group of schoolboys and young women, led by a schoolteacher, Masterda Surya Sen, took on the British Empire.
"I started working on the film from 2006 and at that time there were many producers interested in the film. But in 2008 because of the recession, everyone backed out. I did not have any option but to invest all the money I had got as royalty for the camera technology in the film. We had budget constraints. We shot the film in just 42 days because we did not even have the money for the 43rd day," Bedabrata said.
Ashutosh Gowariker's 2010 film "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey" was also based on the uprising but Anurag said "Chittagong" is far more tighter and focused.
"'Chittagong' was made much before 'Khele Hum...'. I have seen both the films and I can say that there is no similarity. Our film is much tighter and focused. It is told through the eyes of a 14-year-old boy, Jhunku Roy. Our film is made with one tenth of the budget of the previous film," Anurag added.
The film stars Manoj Bajpai, who plays the role of Masterda Surya Sen, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vega Tamotia, Raj Kumar Yadav, Jaideep Ahlawat among others. The film will hit theatres on October 12. (MORE)