West Bengal chit fund scam hits the state's film industry

Priyanka Gupta, CNN-IBN | Updated Apr 29, 2013 at 08:45am IST

Kolkata: The West Bengal chit fund is getting bigger each day. It has now turns out that ponzi schemes in the state financed not just media houses but Tollywood films as well. In the past four years, at least one in three films has been produced by groups that run ponzi schemes.

Rose Valley, a deposit-taking company which is now under the MCA scanner, has produced 18 films including three National Award-winning ones. The Prayag group of companies, also under probe, is building a film city with none other than Shah Rukh Khan as its brand ambassador. But the industry is worried at what it sees as a mere brand-building exercise by the chit funds.

Arijit Dutta, former President of Eastern India Motion Pictures Association, said, "There are about 18 chit fund companies which have shown interest in producing films or have produced films." Filmmaker Sumon Mukherjee said, "They have no background in cinema, no understanding, no concern about the future of cinema. They just have some loose money, illegal money coming in and they want to use it."

Rahul Mukherjee, a first time director is now scrambling for producers to finance his film. His producer, a chit fund company, deserted the project and went hiding after the crackdown on the Saradha group. "80 per cent of the film is done, but now we cannot complete it without funds. So it has stopped," Rahul said.

Projects have been shelved and releases have been postponed. With no state funding and an unregulated market with a lot of grey areas, the film industry is caught between a rock and a hard place. Filmmaker Q said, "It's all right for us to say we need a clean source of funding but how? At the end of the day a director wants to make a film."

The Bengali film industry, which has seen an unprecedented increase in terms of sheer volume of films produced and released because of the fresh flow of funds, has suffered a setback. But many of the industry insiders believe that this setback was perhaps necessary to purge the industry of illegal money. 

Mahanayak Uttam Kumar museum, gallery in Tollygunge

TNN, Sep 4, 2010, 01.05am IST

KOLKATA: More than 50% of his celluloid films are lost forever, but it is only now 30 years after his death that the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has decided to set up an archive on Uttam Kumar. There are also plans to set up a permanent gallery on the matinee idol.

On Thursday, minister of state for information and cultural affairs Soumendranath Bera, said that a decision has been taken to set up an exclusive vault to archive films, photographs and writings on Uttam Kumar at the Chalachchitra Shatabarshiki Bhawan in Tollygunge.

According to Partha Raha, curator of the Bhawan, still photographs on the matinee idol have been procured since 1948, many posters of his films as well as a number of booklets containing articles on Uttam Kumar and his films have also been collected. These have discussions, reviews and analyses of his films.

"At the moment, we have procured 13 celluloid prints of Uttam Kumar's films. In addition, we also have two films from the Satyajit Ray archive Nayak and Chiriakhana in which Uttam Kumar played the lead role," Raha said.

One of the four vaults at Chalachitra Shatabarshiki Bhawan, dedicated to Uttam Kumar, is also being named after the actor.

There are also plans to create a permanent photo gallery on the actor at the Bhawan. "This should be ready by December," Raha said. According to the minister, film scholars keen on research on Uttam Kumar will also benefit hugely from this archiving being taken up by the government.

According to film scholar Sanjay Mukhopadhyay, most of Uttam Kumar's celluloid prints are either damaged beyond repair or completely lost. "A proper film archive means a celluloid archive, and the technical expertise required for restoration of damaged celluloid prints is hardly available in our country. It remains to be seen how the state government goes about preparing the archive," Mukhopadhyay said.

Famous actor Dilip Roy passes away

KOLKATA, 3rd Sept. 2010: Well-known Bengali actor and director Dilip Roy died here on Thursday after a prolonged battle with cancer, sources from his family said.

Mr. Roy (79) was a bachelor and is survived by three adopted sons. His first break came in Parivar, and he appeared in 44 films in a career spanning over two decades.

Mr. Roy's directorial ventures include Neelkantha, Debdas, and Amrita Kumbher Sandhaney. He was also cinematographer of the Bengali film Bhalobasa Bhalobasa, besides Oriya films Tu Eka Aama Saha Bharasa, Mamata Ra Dori, and Chaka Bhaunri.

In his later years, Mr. Roy acted in a popular genre of Bengali theatre known as ‘Jatra.' — PTI

Unique retrospective of Bengali cinema opens in Edinburgh

London (PTI): The St John's Church Hall in Edinburgh has been transformed into a Sunderbans jungle for a three-day Bengali film retrospective of classics by Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Tapan Sinha as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The hall has been covered by foliage from West Bengal while the cackle and cooing of fauna from the Sunderban groves fills the air. According to film festival expert Mark Cousins, forests are a natural place to watch films, "particularly ones from steamy, florid West Bengal".The Bengali Film retrospective runs until tomorrow, when noted Indian actor Sharmila Tagore will be present to publicly discuss the mists and magic of Bengali cinema with Cousins.

Explaining the significance of watching Bengali films in a forest setting, Cousins said at the opening: "I associate forests with fairytales, so the idea of telling a story in a forest is very appealing."Bengal is famous for its jungles. Its images and sounds appear in all their poetry, music and literature.Besides, if you want to convince people to come to films they haven't heard of, you have to make it as magical as possible."

Cousins said: "We're showing West Bengal films in that little forest cinema because the creative heart of Indian cinema is in West Bengal. We invited the first lady of Bengali cinema, Sharmila Tagore, because she's a legend and her career is unique. We're totally thrilled".Classic Bengali films to be shown include Ghatak's 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' (1960), 'Titash Ekdi Nadir Naam' (1973), Tapan Sinha's 'Niranjan Saikate' (1963), and Satyajit Ray's 'Aranyer Din Ratri' (1970).

"Indian cinema is not all Bollywood. India is a federation of people, ideas and cultural forms. And West Bengal, without doubt, is the artistic heart of this federation. It has a tradition of literature and poetry that other parts of India didn't quite have. And this feeds into its films," Cousins added.The uniquely transformed movie hall is part of a cultural conversation between Kolkata and Scotland organised by the British Council.

"I want white Scots to fall in love with these films. I want people to be gripped by the desire to see what Kolkata is like. I want them to be left with a major hunger to go and see Bengali films. These are great works of art. It's as simple as that," Cousins added.

Veteran Indian director Tapan Sinha mourned

KOLKATA: Leading Indian filmmaker Tapan Sinha has died in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata at the age of 84. Sinha, who suffered breathlessness and a chest infection late last year, died in a city hospital.

Last year, he was awarded the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke award - the highest national cinema honour - for his contribution to Indian cinema.Sinha, who made some 40 films - mostly in Bengali - was a versatile film-maker who straddled a range of themes.

Born in the eastern state of West Bengal - which was home to some of India's most acclaimed directors like the Oscar-winning Satyajit Ray - Tapan Sinha carved out a niche for himself as an intelligent and popular film-maker.

Making films in Bengali and later in Hindi, he took on a wide variety of subjects.Some of his films like Kabuliwalla, Harmonium and Jhinder Bandi became box office hits in Bengal. Ek Doctor Ki Maut (A doctor's death), made in Hindi, gained him nationwide recognition.

"He was an unassuming gentleman who had a strong ear for music and great command over adaptation of famous literary works," film critic Shoma A Chatterji said. Sinha began his career as a sound engineer and shot into the limelight with his 1956 feature Kabuliwalla, based on the story of a relationship between a girl and an Afghan dry fruit-seller by Nobel Prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore.

He then took up several political and social themes - Adalat O Ekti Meye (The Law and a Lady), for example, dealt with a rape victim ostracised by society.Sinha won more than a dozen film awards in India for his work