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Since the advent of the talkie era, playback has played a big role in Bengali cinema. From Kanan Devi’s Ami banaphool go to Arati Mukhopadhyay’s Ami Miss Calutta — our films have a song for every emotion. In this segment, BFA tunes in to the music composers, singers and lyricists who made all that happen. The bonus is a chance to listen to the BFA-curated list of hits across seven decades!
'Anubha-di and I played pranks on the sets to stump Uttam Kumar'
Chhandapatan, the last film of the actress directed by Guru Bagchi, released exactly 50 years ago in 1974. Two years before the release, she had passed away leaving her contemporaries shocked. Among those who were numbed by the news was her soul sister, Madhabi Mukhopadhyay. She was aware that behind her gregarious personality was a woman who had the willpower to negotiate pain without breathing a word about it to the world. The veteran actress recounts the agony and ecstasy of being Anubha Gupta
On Poila Boishakh last year, we had begun our journey with a short film on an iconic single screen of Kolkata. On turning one today, we celebrate the passion associated with yet another iconic single screen of the City of Joy. Rabin Seth, the nonagenarian manager of Chhabighar, would hop on to his bicycle and pedal some two km from his residence to reach the theatre. Unfortunately, Seth passed away on 30th January this year. But his love for cinema remains frozen for the screen forever in this Bijoy Chowdhury film. What better time to unveil it than on BFA’s first birthday?
Do you know that the famous swing scene of Charulata was shot in a garden on of the erstwhile Bengal Engineering College campus in Shibpur? Are you aware of what happened when Debaki Kumar Bose had accidentally chanced upon Tarun Majumdar's publicity design of Padatik? Do you have a clue about how Asit Sen learnt the fine art of low angle shots when he had first met Satyajit Ray at the DJ Keymer advertising firm? Read on to check out such anecdotes that happened on and off the sets of some of our cult Bengali films.