Review of Byomkesh Pawrbo

Last year, director Arindam Sil had reintroduced the popular sleuth character from Bengali literature Byomkesh Bakshi, with his movie #HarHarByomkesh. First time he made a Byomkesh movie which was more contemporary more mainstream without compromising the core qualities of a Byomkesh thriller. He has continued that trend with his second outing with Byomkesh in the movie #ByomkeshPawrbo.

#ByomkeshPawrbo is a movie based on Sharadindu Bandopadhyay’s novel “Amriter Mrityu”. The story is set in the backdrop of a small town Santagola in the Dooars area of

North Bengal during the time of 1948. Govt of West Bengal assigns a task to Byomkesh Bakshi (Abir Chatterjee) to find out the persons responsible for the illegal arms circulation in Santagola area. So Byomkesh has to go to Santagola and he is accompanied by his wife Satyabati (Sohini Sarkar) and writer friend Ajit (Ritiwick Chakraborty). Reaching there he finds there are four rich and powerful local businessman who are the prime suspects. These persons are Biswanath Mullick (Kaushik), Badrinath Das (Rajatava), Nafor Kundu (Subhasis) and Jamunadas Gangaram (Ashok Singh). The mystery gets more confused when two back to back murders happen in the nearby village. First a mentally challenged man Amrito gets killed and it is followed by the murder of another middle aged suspicious guy Sadananda Sur (Rudranil Sengupta). By doing further investigation Byomkesh comes to conclusion that both the murders are actually related with the illegal arms dealing.

The screenplay has been adopted doing some minor changes from the original text but it can be said it is very well written script which is crisp and engaging till the end. No matter if you

have already read the story or not you will enjoy the investigation process of Byomkesh with little help of Satyabati and Ajit. It’s true that there are only four suspects so it is rather easy to predict the main culprit and many of you may predict that even before the climax but that does not affect the enjoyment of watching the movie. The references of literature especially Mahabharata has been used quite cleverly in the story proceeding. Also the dense forest of Dooars area has been used wonderfully not just as a backdrop rather as a character of the film. Only problem with the script is one additional song before the climax which looks very much out of place. It could have been avoided or could have been placed in the first half, but this is negligible.

As a director Arindam Sil has always succeeded to prove his caliber. In recent times when Bengali film industry is going through a bad phase, Arindam Sil is one of those directors who are giving commercially successful movies that too without compromising the quality of the film. He has skilfully modified the well familiar dhoti kurta clad sleuth to fit into today's time. The way he has performed as a captain to the talented cast and crew and has extracted the best work from them is commendable.

Among the actors the best of all is no doubt Abir Chatterjee in the title role of Byomkesh

Bakshy. It is his fifth film as Byomkesh and every time he is evolving to be a better actor and more suited for the role. For a change this time he has seen doing some hand to hand battles and horse riding and he has done those sequences confidently. There are some disguises for his character too and he has managed those portions very well.

Sohini Sarkar looks adorable as the sweet cooperative Satyabati. Even in the last film we have seen Arindam Sil presents more calm and sweet version of Satyabati compared to the text and Sohini looks perfect in this version of Satyabati. Ritwick Chakraborty has nothing much to do as Ajit. He has managed to make her presence felt in the supporting role.

Among the others Kaushik Sen is very natural as always. Rajatava Dutta is okay. Shubhashis Mukherjee is good providing some comic relief. Sumanta Mukhopadhyay looks convincing as the local inspector at Dooars. Special mention should be given for Rudranil Ghosh. He has very lesser screen time and hardly two three lines but he is just brilliant in those scenes. His expressions and body language is too good as a middle aged lonely man having many secrets under his sleeves. Supriya Dutta is excellent in his one scene appearance, he will definitely make you laugh in that one scene.

The technical team has a major responsibility when the film is set in a different period and

here we must say the whole technical crew has done a fabulous job. Their research to recreate the era is just too good. DOP Soumik Halder is in excellent form with his camera. The opening credits where he has shot the dense forest from a top view, he has made us spellbound. Special mention should be given to the night sequences shot in jungle, they are brilliantly captured. Same can be said about the sound design which is perfect. While talking about the recreation of the period of 1948 how can we not talk about the makeup and costumes done by Sabarni Das. Her effort has made every character look perfect on the screen. Also Tanmay Chakraborty is good in production design; especially the set designed for Sadanand Sur’s house looks very authentic.

Both the music and background score has been done by Bickram Ghosh and we must say he

is better in background score than the songs. The songs are not bad but have not been used properly in the movie. The over hyped mujra number “Dil Rasiya” featuring Sayantika does not work that much. There were more expectations from the song considering that it has been choreographed by ace choreographer Saoj Khan. But the output on screen is just ordinary and we must say Sayantika should have work harder on her dance steps, though she is okay with her facial expressions.

Finally it is a well made film from a brilliant and hard working cast and crew lead by a talented director. This movie is a perfect blend of modern film making approach with traditional Byomkesh emotions.

Review of Double Feluda

Sandip Ray's #DoubleFeluda is different from any other regular Feluda movies and there is a particular reason. It is actually a celebration of completion of long fifty years of Feluda. That is why it is a film where the word Feluda has been used in the title itself and also for the fans it has not one rather two stories in two halves. These two stories are "Samaddarer Chabi" and "Golakdhaam Rahasya".

Apart from these two stories there are some additional features for the fans like the opening credit showing the original textbook snapshots from different popular Feluda stories which will bring back all the memories of reading the books. The end credit is a journey through the memories of Feluda movies where the cast and crew members shares there experience working with Satyajit Ray on Feluda movies.

Coming back to the movie both the stories are from the beginning stage of Feluda stories where there was no presence of Jatayu. Diehard fans will surely miss this inseparable character of Feluda stories.

For those who have not read the stories, “Samaddarer Chabi” is a story of Radharaman

Samaddar, a musical instrument collector who dies out of heart disease and while dying he lefts a clue about where he has kept al his savings, to his nephew Manimohan Samaddar (Bratya Basu). Manimohan hires Feluda to solve the mystery from the parting words of his uncle. “Golakdham Rahasya” is a story about a scientist Nihar Ranjan Dutta (Dhritiman Chatterjee) who was doing a research in US but his path breaking research stopped when he met with an accident and lost his eyes. After this accident he returns to India and starts living with his family. One day someone stoles his unfinished research work papers, that brings Feluda in the picture to solve this crime. The case gets more complicated when one of the two tenants of the house got killed.    

Sandip Ray has a unique style of film making where he keeps his storytelling very simple. He transforms Feluda stories to contemporary times without doing much changes to the original story as a result the look and feel remains the same as of the time period of the original text. Even now Feluda believes more on Sidhu Jyatha rather than Google. These things help to give the old age charm of the original stories.

Sabyasachi Chakraborty has played the character of Feluda on screen for the maximum time and he has succeeded to match our expectations every time. There is no doubt so far he is

the best suited Feluda on screen. When he confirmed to step into the shoes of Feluda once again after giving the opportunity to Abir Chatterjee for one movie, there were many doubts to many people, like Sabyasachi Chakraborty is growing old and he is looking aged. But on a surprising note with perfect make up and a better body language Sabyasachi has managed to overcome those shortcomings.As Topshe, Saheb Bhattacharya has nothing much to do and he is just okay.

Among the supporting cast everyone has done full justification with their characters. Special mention should be given for Saswata Chatterjee,Paran Bandopadhyay and Dhritiman Chatterjee. They have very less screen time but they have managed to leave impression wonderfully.

Finally it can be said, in the movie #DoubleFelua, every possible signature style of Feluda movies are present. Feluda is a nostalgic emotion to most of us and for those will be a better idea than watching the movie, to celebrate glorious fifty years of this emotional journey. Please note do not miss the opening and end credits of the films. These two sections are dedicated to all the Feluda fans there.

Review of Bengali film Antarleen

You must have heard movies based on mix genre like romantic-comedy or horror-sex movies but have you ever thought of an emotional murder mystery, #Antarleen is exactly that mix of basic human emotion related to the pain of being lonely, at the same time it is a whodunit murder mystery.

It starts with a small teaser of a suicide which sets the mood of a thriller but soon after that it shifts a lighter mood. Many tourists from different places of India are going to the hill station Kasouli. There are variety of people with different motives like Kolkata Crime Branch’s senior officer Aniket Sanyal (Kharaj Mukherjee) who is going to Kasouli just for a vacation to overcome the pain of his wife’s demise, then there is Dutta family, a Bengali family from Gurgaon who are on a vacation for a weather change for their ailing mother (Mamata Shankar) who is on medication. There is Bidushi Mukherjee (Sampurna Lahiri) who is on a vacation for a mood change after having some problems in her professional life. Not all are there just for holiday there is Prof Swami (Biswajit Sarkar) who has some personal work there and also there is Anupama Jaiswal ,a trustee of convent school, who is just forced to be there with her Driver Mahendra as their car have some problem during their journey from Amritsar to Shimla. All these people stayed in a same lodge “Blossoms” and spend a good time in their first evening but everything takes a new turn when one of them gets killed in the first night itself. After this point it turns into a murder mystery and Aniket Sanyal who was there just for a vacation has to come back on his duty as an investigation officer of this murder, on request of the local police. Later he is also joined by Bidushi as an assistant who is also a narcotics dept officer. While doing their investigation they come to know about some local residents who are also connected with some of the in mates of the lodge and they also discover that everyone there in the lodge have some secrets with them.

A murder mystery should have two qualities; it should have pace and it should keep the suspense intact till the end. The film fails in the first department, it is not a fast paced film, rather it is lazy with full of emotional scenes which seems to be irrelevant. Though it fails to maintain pace but yes it has maintained the suspense till the end. You can guess it partially few minutes before the climax but still you cannot guess the total truth. The good thing is at end when the mystery unfolds it gives the required shock value and it will also justify the emotional moments which were appearing irrelevant earlier.

Director Arindam Bhattacharya has chosen an unconventional subject for his debut and has handled it quite well. In one movie he has proved he is good in handling both emotional scenes as well as a thriller. Though there is scope of improvement but still we should give him credit for his good attempt.

There is a mix of actors with some seasoned actors and some not so known faces. Some have done good job and some are not so convincing but overall it is a good ensemble cast.

Kharaj Mukherjee normally keeps us entertaining in his comic roles but here he has get a chance to do something different. We hardly have seen him in a lead role that too as a detective and he has done it very well. He has maintained the required smartness and poise for his character. There is one emotional scene where he is remembering his wife and he is too good in that scene. As an addition to that there is one song too in his voice.

Mamata Shankar is very natural as a lonely grandmother. Her emotions looks so real on screen, we wish to see her more on screen. She too has sung a sweet Rabindra sangeet and it is lovely to hear her voice. Biswajit Sarkar is very impressive as the Tamil professor, he has really worked hard on his Tamil accent and it sounds perfect. Sampurna Lahiri has got an important role to play after a long time but sadly she could not utilise it fully. There is no continuity in her performance in some scenes she is good in some she disappoints. Rest of the cast is jut okay.

Among the technical team one man deserves the maximum credit and he is the cinematographer, he has captured the beautiful valleys of Kasouli wonderfully. After watching it you will definitely like to go there for an outing. Also the nigh sequences have been shot with perfect lighting. The sound design is also an integral part of a thriller and it is perfect. Ratul Shankar who is a not a regular to Bengali movies have done good job with the music and background score.

On final thoughts, it can be said that it is not an edge of the seat thriller but it is a good attempt to make a thriller with some human emotions mixed with it.  It is a refreshing film that will give you a satisfactory experience.

Review of Dear Zindagi

It's a very common situation that a new director makes his or her debut with a wonderful film with small budget and almost no stars then they got back up from big houses for their second outing and with the glamour and glitter of big budget and stars they finally lost the main ingredient the story which was their USP. Thankfully director Gauri Shinde has not been victim of this temptation. After winning everyone's heart with small but impressive film #EnglishVinglish she got backed up by Karan Johar as a producer and she also managed to afford big stars like Shahrukh Khan and Alia Bhatt. But fortunately she did not get carried away with all these rather she focused to tell a heart touching story which can connect with the audiences for its simplicity and authentic presentation.

It is a story of a young girl Kaira (Alia Bhatt) who is suffering from many mental disorders

just like any other modern girl of her age. She is insecure about her career as a cinematographer; she is unable to settle in a relationship. In addition to that she is going through the baggage of a disturbed childhood which affects her relationship with her parents. She is totally clueless with what to do with her life when she gets in touch with her DD (Dimaag Ka Doctor) Jehangir Khan aka Jug (Shahrukh Khan) who is a therapist for mental illness. Jug makes Kaira realize that how beautiful life can be and how we make it more complicated and painful. 

The story is very refreshing so is the screenplay though some people may find it a bit long. In the beginning it took little more than required time to introduce the main protagonist and her lifestyle but after almost 50 minutes once the therapy sessions between Dr. Khan and Kaira begins then you won't find any dull moment. And while saying about the story we must be thankful to the makers for bringing up such an important but mostly neglected topic of our society that is to be careful of our mental health. There is nothing to be shy to get open about mental illness and taking help of a specialist for that.

As a director Gauri Shinde is a genius, she has proved her calibre with her debut in

#EnglishVinglish and this time she has proved that it was not a onetime fluke rather it is her genuine talent. The best thing about her story telling is the simplicity which helps it to connect easily with the audiences and make it believable on screen. At this age of film making where every other filmmaker is in a race to enter in some 100cr clubs, Gauri Shinde still believes the story is the real hero of the film, not the larger than life production values. Also choosing Goa as the backdrop is commendable as this is a place which has not been used much in Hindi movies so it has given a fresh feel to it.

All the actors have been cast perfectly and the best has been delivered by none other thanAlia Bhatt. After #Highway it will be her second best role in her career. She is so natural in all her scene that you will feel sympathetic to her when she is sad and feel happy when she is happy. Her body language, style, talking everything is very much apt for her character which is of a modern day ambitious girl. In the emotional scene where she tells about her childhood she is just brilliant.

After #Fan once again Shahrukh Khan is playing a character which is very different from his romantic image of Rajs and Rahuls. Shahrukh Khan is always very impressive when he

gives advice someone in her public appearances and as Dr. Khan you will get that reflection in his acting. It is actually a supporting role and in spite of being a big star still he has chosen to do a supporting role to a much junior actresses, it shows how hungry he is for good roles as an actor. All his dialogues will impress you and even when he has no dialogue when he is just listening to Alia's character he is perfect in those scenes too with his reactions. And finally no matter he is romancing a girl on screen or not he always looks charming and adorable.

Among the supporting cast first we should talk about the guys who have been cast as Alia's boyfriend at different stages. The casting for these boys have been done very cleverly choosing actors who are good and charming but not so regular in movies so it would not have been very difficult to make them agree to do this small  roles and it has also helped to limit the budget. It’s very refreshing to see Kunal Kapoor on screen after a long time. He is good in his role. Ali Zafar has less time to perform than singing and when it comes to singing he is always good. Angad Bedi is good in one scene appearance.

Among the girls both Ira Duvet and Yashaswini R Dayama are fantastic as Kaira's best friends. Especially Ira Dubey is so good we wish to see her more.

Amit Trivedi's music is always different  but sounds good and here too there is no exception. #LoveYouZindagi is a very nice soulful track which will be with you even after the movie. #TuHiHai and #GoToHell are good songs and have been used well in the movie. The background score by Trivedi again is nice and soothing and maintains pace with the story.

Cinematographer Laxman Utekar has captured the natural beauty of Goa wonderfully. It is not the crowded beach side parties rather the calm and peaceful side of Goa. 

Overall it is a well made film which will surely connect with you. Watch it for the superb storytelling and brilliant performances. And also watch it to support the issue which it has addressed that is being healthy mentally which the need of the hour is. 

Winners of 23rd Annual Star Screen Awards 2016

Winners of 23rd Annual Star Screen Awards 2016

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Best Film

Pink

Best Director
Ram Madhvani – Neerja

Best Actor
Amitabh Bachchan – Pink

Best Actress
Alia Bhatt – Udta Punjab⁠

Critics Choice For Best Actor
Sushant Singh Rajput – M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story

Critics Choice For Best Actress
Swara Bhaskar – Nil Battey Sannata

Best Supporting Actor 
Rishi Kapoor – Kapoor & sons

Best Supporting Actress
Shabana Azmi – Neerja

Best Actor In A Comic Role
Varun Dhawan – Dishoom

Best Child Artist
Riya Shukla – Nil Battey Sannata

Debut Awards

Most promising Debut Director
Tinu Suresh Desai – Rustom⁠

Best Newcomer (Male)

Jim Sarbh – Neerja
Harshvardhan Kapoor – Mirzya

Best Newcomer (Female)
Disha Patani – M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story

Music Awards

Best Lyricist
Amitabh Bhattacharya – Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

Best Music
Pritam Chakraborty – Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

Best Playback Singer (Male)
Amit Mishra – Bulleya (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil)

Best Playback Singer (Female)
Palak Muchhal – Kaun Tujhe (M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story)

Technical Awards

Best Choreography
Bosco-Caesar – Kala Chashma (Baar Baar Dekho)

Best Editing
Aditya Bannerji – Pink

Best Cinematography
Anay Goswami – Fitoor

Best Action
Jai Singh Nijjar – Shivaay

Best Story Screenplay
Saiwyn Quadras – Neerja

Best Dialogue
Ritesh Shah – Pink

Review of Thammar Boyfriend

#ThammarBoyfriend the title of the movie itself is very funny but the question is whether the movie too is that funny or not? The answer will be, it has comic moments but it could have been funnier. It is a comic take on a serious social issue that is ignoring elderly people in family and we are thankful to director Anindya Ghosh for bringing up such an important topic.

The movie is about Thamma , grandmother Nandini (Savitri Chatterjee) who is an old aged, wealthy  widow who lives a lonely life in a remote area. She has a big family having son (Biswajit Chakraborty), daughter (Sudipa Basu), son-in-law (Supriyo Dutta), daughter in law (Dolon Roy) and three grand children but no one lives with her. Even when she becomes seriously ill, no one comes to meet her or help her. In such a situation one day her son and daughter get a letter saying their mother is planning to remarry as she has found a new boyfriend (Abir Chatterjee). This shocking news brings the whole family to thamma as they are scared to lose all the property as a new man has entered in thamma’s life. The rest of the movie goes how the family members try to break up the romantic relationship of thamma and her boyfriend Partho.

The screenplay is very much one directional and nothing much happens, so after a point it

starts looking monotonous which is not a good sign. There are funny moments but there could have been more comedy. The dialogues too lack the punch required for comedy.

The screenplay does not take much time to introduce thamma and her boyfriend to the whole family, after that for rest of the film all the family members keep planning to separate them but sadly they do not take much effort to execute their plans, except for Rini (Arunima Ghosh) the elder grand daughter who tries to trap Partho making him fall in love with her.  Though the film’s length is only 2 hours but still towards end it seems it has been dragged for long because of lack of engaging moments. After a point the romantic track between Partho and Rini has been given more importance which has sidelined other family members.

Though it has been promoted as a comedy but rather than comedy, the emotional moments where family members realizes how they have neglected the elderly woman is more appealing. In spite of all these short comings we cannot stop praising the makers for bringing up an important issue to give love and care to the older members of our family.

As a director Anindya Ghosh has chosen a good subject but he has failed to execute it as the screenplay is weak and the characters are very cliche.

Savitri Chatterjee is no doubt a good actress but the she is a miscast here as the required

naughtiness is missing in her acting. Her comic timing is not bang on. Especially the costumes and make up looks too flashy on her and she looks very uncomfortable in those. As her boyfriend Partho, Abir Chatterjee is very natural and looks charming for whom every girl can fall in love. He has done good acting but sadly he had not much to do except for few emotional scenes with Arunima. Arunima Ghosh is in excellent form. In the crowd of actors doing loud attempt to do comedy her acting is very natural and convincing.

Both Supriyo Dutta and Biswajit Chakraborty are good actors but here they have played very cliché characters and they have done full on loud acting, their comedy does not look effortless. Dolon Roy is okay and Sudipa Basu is good in her limited scope. Lama has done good job as the Punjabi driver. He has limited scenes but he will make you laugh with his comic timing.

Over all it is movie which you can enjoy with your whole family.  It is a good attempt to give an important lesson to us that is to love and care elderly people. You can watch it once and take your grandparents too with you.

Update of Bengali Movies in the Third Quarter of 2016

The third quarter of 2016 was quite good in terms of business as well as good movies, specially the month of August which had two big hits.
Let's look back at this quarter and have month wise recap.

July

July is the month of Eid and since last few years Tollywood producers are eyeing at it to release their movies. This year on Eid it was the biggest clash of this year; Eskay Movies vs Shree Venkatesh Films, Jeet vs Dev, Action vs Comedy, #BadshahTheDon vs #KelorKirti.

#BadshahTheDon

It was Jeet starer action drama, a south Indian remake directed by Baba Yadav and Abdul Aziz. It was a joint production of India’s Eskay movies and Bangladesh’s Jazz Multimedia.It had actors from both side of Bengal. The leading lady was Bangladeshi actress Nusrat Faria, also there was Indian actress Shraddha Das. Also it featured Mahesh Manjerekar from Mumbai as the lead villain. The movie was just an average masala entertainer with dramatic punch lines, stylish action sequences and massy music. These types of commercial films are not doing that well now a days and this movie too was not an exception. Still it managed to be a crowd puller in small centres and it get good response in Bangladesh too because of the presence of local actors. The songs like “Piya Tore Bina” and “Dhat Tereki” were very popular among its target audience.

#KelorKirti It was a scene by scene remake of Bollywood adult comedy #NoEntry and that was the

biggest weak point of this film as the original one is already over exposed on TV. This one was a multi starer and the main highlight was Jisshu Sengupta's comeback to mainstream commercial cinema after a long time. Another added attraction was Dev in an extended cameo as a Casanova. Jisshu did a good job with fine comic timing and he was ably supported by Mimi Chakraborty who was playing his on screen wife. There was Nushrat too in a sexy avatar grooving her body to the tunes of “Item Bomb”. But all these could not help this to be a good entertainer. There were several reasons like it was a remake of a hugely popular Hindi movie so there was nothing new for the audiences. Also comedy movies hardly have any market in Bengali commercial cinema, it was too massy for urban audience and for small centres it was less spicy as there were no heavy dialogue or action scenes. Overall this movie became flop in final run.

Apart from this big clash there was one another significant release in this month and it was #Khwato

#Khwato It was an erotic thriller directed by Kamaleshwar Mujherjee and produced by Venkatesh

Films. It was about a passionate poet and his muse played by Prasenjit Chatterjee and Paoli Dam respectively. The movie was one of rare bold films of Bengali cinema not just because of the bold sex scenes rather because of the bold lead characters who are too open to admit their sexual needs. This movie showcased some wonderful performance by Prasenjit Chatterjee, Paoli Dam, Rahul Banerjee. Special credit should be given for Prasenjit for taking this challenging character with grey shades. It was a different concept but was somewhere lost in execution. The movie had potential to leave its mark but sadly finally it remained just a movie about extra marital affair nothing more. As expected at ticket windows its performance was very poor.

August

It's very rare that three big Bengali releases coming in one month that too without any festive season, but that rare scenario had happened in August.
There were three back to back big releases and surprisingly all three were thrillers. Among these three, two were big hits.

#Hemanta This was one long cherished dream of Anjan Dutta to adapt Shakespeare's revenge drama Hamlet. Anjan Dutta had adapted his story in a contemporary setup in today's Kolkata. It

had a wonderful ensemble cast featuring talented actors like Parambrata Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Shaswata Chatterjee, Gargee Roychoudhury, Payel Sarkar in the lead roles. All of them had done wonderful acting. It had an interesting premise, the characters had been transformed from play to movie keeping their basic emotions intact but somewhere the screenplay failed to transform the play into a movie script. Also towards the end the story was too hurried to finish. All these shortcomings affected the film's performance people rejected it and it failed badly.

#GoyendaShaborEaglerChokh Last year director Arindam Sil had surprised everyone with his slick stylish thriller

#EbarShabor, this time he was back with the second instalment of Shabor Series. Once again it was based on a Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay story, a murder mystery set in today's Kolkata. It was a story revolving around a young guy who is going through a mental trauma after a childhood tragic incident and many female characters around him among them many were sexually attracted to the guy. Shaswata Chatterjee once again did an excellent job as detective Shabor Dashgupta. Among the others it was theatre actor Anirban Bhattacharya in the central character who did a superb job and grabbed everyone's attention. Among the girls Jaya Ahsaan and debutante Riya Bank gave a remarkable performance. The first part of Shabor Series was a big hit and the second one continued that trend. It got a big opening and kept doing excellent business for many weeks. Even after six weeks it's still going strong at theatres. So far it is the second big hit of this year after #Praktan.

#SahebBibiGolaamIt was critic turned director Pratim D Gupta's second directorial venture. Since the first teaser had been released there was enough curiosity for the film. The bold and edgy thriller

had grabbed eyeballs not only in Bengal rather it had got positive feedback from many celebrities from Bollywood too. As a director Pratim D Gupta’s directorial debut was almost unnoticed but this time he was back with full energy and a wonderful cast which consists names like Anjan Dutta, Swastika Mujherjee, Ritwick Chakraborty, Parno Mitra. It was an interesting story about a contact killer , a bore housewife and a taxi driver whose lives gets interconnected with each other in a surprising twist. It was an interesting as well as refreshing story. Another good point about the film was it had raised string voice against social injustice and crime against women and this point helped it more to get connected with the audiences.The music by Anupam Roy was very melodious, the songs like “Mon Bhalo Nei” and “Tomar Ki Naam” were very popular. This movie had to struggle a lot with censor board for its bold contents which had delayed its release date, but the audience were mature enough to accept the bold contents. It got a bumper opening which was not expected at all and continued to run well at theatres for next few weeks.

September

The month of September had not much big releases. The only significant release was Shree Venkatesh Films production #LoveExpress.

#LoveExpress

This was a romantic comedy featuring Dev and Nusrat as the lead pair alongside few regular character actors of commercial Bengali movies. This movie was Dev's first solo release of this year so his fans were very excited. But the excitement does not made a huge impact on its box office performance. It did only average business at the box office. The music of this film was very popular; it marked the comeback for very popular music composer Jeet Ganguly who is not that regular in Bengali movies these days. The songs like "Mon Bolchhe Amar”, "Dhitang Dhitang" and "Majhe Majhe" were very popular among the mass. 

Apart from that there was #KiritiOKalobhramor featuring Indraneil Sengupta as detective Kiriti. It was the on screen debut of famous Seluth character Kiriti. This movie was a average one, both Indraneil and Kaushik Sen in a negative character were effective. But sadly Kiriti did not get positive feedback from viewers unlike the other Seluths like Byomkesh, Feluda or Kakababu.

The third quarter was not that bad but the now we are hopeful with the last quarter of the year. This one has the biggest releases on this Puja and then in Christmas. Hope it will be the best part of the year.

Best Film of Quarter 3 2016

• Eagler Chokh
• Saheb Bibi Golaam

Best Directors of Quarter 3 2016

• Arindam Sil - Eagler Chokh
• Pratim D Gupta - Saheb Bibi Golaam

 Best Actors of Quarter 3 2016

• Prasenjit Chatterjee - Khwato
• Shashwata Chatterjee - Eagler Chokh/Hemanta
• Parambrata Chatterjee - Hemanta
• Rahul Banerjee - Khwato
• Anirban Bhattacharya - Eagler Chokh
• Jishu Sengupta - Hemanta/Kelor Kirti
• Sagnik Chattrerjee- Hemanta
• Shubhra Saurav Das - Hemanta
• Vikram Chatterjee - Saheb Bibi Golaam
• Ritwick Chakraborty - Saheb Bibi Golaam
• Anjan Dutta - Saheb Bibi Golaam

Best Actresses of Quarter 3 2016

• Paoli Dam - Khwato
• Jaya Ahsan - Eagler Chokh
• Mimi Chakraborty - Kelor Kirti
• Gargee Roychowdhury - Hemanta
• Swastika Mukherjee - Saheb Bibi Golaam
• Raima Sen - Khwato
• Payel Sarkar - Eagler Chokh/Hemanta
• Riya Banik - Eagler Chokh
• Parno Mitra - Saheb Bibi Golaam