2018: Bengali cinema offered a varied bouquet of films despite competition

Bengali cinema had a decent 2018 by offering a varied diet of adventure thrillers, sleuth films and dramas, which did great business at the box office despite the competition from Bollywood films.

The year began on a great note with the release of 'Asche Abar Shabor' that marked the return of the much loved fictional sleuth Shabor Dasgupta, aka, the versatile Saswata Chatterjee and his team.

A gripping story of gruesome crime, the third installment of popular Shabor series by director Arindam Sil was widely appreciated by critics and audiences alike and ran for several weeks at box office.

Similarly, 'Guptodhoner Sondhane', a treasure-chase adventure on a new breed of sleuths - Sona da, Abir and Jhinuk - went on to become a superhit with its fresh story.

 

"The film's success showed if the content is fresh and original and the execution is good, it will draw audiences," actor Abir Chatterjee, one of the principal actors in the movie, said.

Presenting a totally new genre of films, Srijit Mukherjee's 'Uma', a heartwarming tale of how far a father can go to bring smile on the face of his child, was a runaway hit

for its ability to connect with the audience.

"My film is inspired from the real life story of Evan Leversage ('The Boy Who Moved Christmas') and we have adapted the story line and setting to Kolkata and I had a hunch that Bengali audiences would love the story," Mukherjee said.

Showing their love for the out-of-the-box content, 'Bidaay Byomkesh', revolving around an aged Byomkesh Bakshi passing on the baton to his grandson Satyaki Bakshi, was also widely appreciated by critics and audience and added a new flavour to the year.

'Byomkesh Gowtro', Arindam Sil's take on Saradindu Bandopadhyay's famous 'Rakter Daag'.

Mukherjee's 'Ek Je Chhilo Raja', a historical courtroom drama based on the disappearance of Bhawai Sanyasi and touted to be a magnum opus of Bengali cinema, was also lapped up by the audiences and ran for over a month at theatres with houseful boards for multiple days since its release in Puja. It had Jisshu Sengupta, Aparna Sen and Anjan Dutt among the cast.

The film has also been the official selection at the Dhaka International Film Festival, South Asian Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Ace director Kaushik Ganguly's 'Kishore Kumar Junior', a film on underdogs and based on the life of a street singer who ekes out a living by singing Kishore Kumar's tracks, also ran successfully in cinema halls for weeks after its puja release.

The year-end witnessed the simultaneous releases of 'Rosogolla', a feature film partly based on the inventor of the sweets Nabin Chandra Das and 'Adventures of Jojo' an adventure thriller for children in the christmas week.