Exclusive! Anirban Bhattacharya on Ballavpurer Roopkotha: Comedy is an important genre that is largely underexplored in the Bengali film industry these days

Besides his prolific acting career, Anirban Bhattacharya emerged as a director with his debut series Mandaar that is streaming on Hoichoi as part of its World Classic. Based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Mandaar features Sohini Sarkar, Debesh Roy Chowdhury and Debashish Mondol in the lead. The actor-director and a diligent theatre worker Anirban has recently completed shooting his second directorial project, a feature film, Ballavpurer Roopkatha. In a candid chat with OTTPlay, Anirban talks about his next project.

Also read: Mandaar series review: Anirban Bhattacharya's Macbeth adaptation is at par with classic films  

Based on Badal Sircar’s play, Ballavpurer Roopkotha is essentially a comedy. Like Mandaar, Anirban penned the script of the film adaptation with his close associate Pratik Dutta. “Mandaar is inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It is dark and disturbing. Ballavpur is a feel-good family drama that is full of comedy. Comedy is an important genre that is largely underexplored in the Bengali film industry. I pitched three to four-story ideas to my producers Abhishek Daga, and later, Srikant Mohta, and they zeroed in on this project. In a time of darkness that is plagued with the memory of pandemic and losses, this is a light and happy film that can be enjoyed by everybody,” the director said.

While Mandar is set in a coaster town, Ballavpur is not totally about the rural community. “The film is majorly shot in a rajbari – a palace – outside Kolkata. Following the flavour of a fairytale, we have conducted our outdoor shootings,” Anirban said.

Anirban is also scheduled to direct another series – Bottolar Goyenda, which is based on Swapan Kumar’s cult detective character Dipak Chatterjee. But right now he is not willing to divert his attention. “I believe in taking one step at a time. Right now I am working on Ballavpur and I will not begin the preproduction of the next project while working on the post-production of this film. Once the film is completely ready to release, I will get into the new project. However, that can be before or after the release because release depends upon the producers,” he said.