US-based Hollywood’s international magazine Variety in an exclusive report annouced director Ram Kamal Mukherjee’s much anticipated film Binodiini – Ekti Natir Upakhyan in their official digital portal. Mukherjee finalized Bengal’s leading actor Rukmini Maitra as Binodini Dasi. Set in 17th Century Bengal, the film is a biopic based on theatre actress Binodini Dasi, popularly known as Nati Binodini.
In the history of Variety Magazine, this is the second time that any Bengali film announcement was featured. The only time Hollywood’s top magazine mentioned Bengali maker was Satyajit Ray’s Work Inspires Projects From Big Bazaar Roadshow” written by International Correspondent Naman Ramachandran from US.
“I am honoured and surprised that Variety agreed to break this news worldwide. This has been a huge struggle for me to get this film on floors. Two years of Pandemic had almost killed my hope of bringing Binodini Dasi back on celluloid. And I knew that US functions differently and majorly they focus on Bollywood films and rarely featured Bengali cinema. I am grateful to Naman Ramachandran who penned this beautiful article from Venice, and his editorial team from Los Angeles,” says director Ram Kamal Mukherjee who won many coveted awards in India amd abroad for his film Season’s Greetings and Rickshawala.
Binodiini Ekti Natir Upakhyan is presented by Bengal’s superstar Dev Adhikari under his banner Dev Entertainment Ventures while the film is produced by Shhailendra Kkumar, Suraj Sharma and Prateek Chakraborty. The story, screenplay and dialogue is penned by Priyanka Poddar, while Cannes rewarded cinematographer Modhura Palit will do the principle photography of the film in Kolkata. The motion poster designed by Ekta Bhattacharjee created major impact across India.
Ram Kamal will be shooting the film in Bengal. The story of Nati Binodini remains one of the most Iconic tales from Bengal theatre. “It’s a mammoth task for me to make this film keeping the sentiments of Bengali audiences in mind. I want to make a global cinema, keeping the narrative international so that it can connect beyond language and geographical boundaries,” says director Ram Kamal Mukherjee.
Variety is an American media company owned by Penske Media Corporation. The company was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933 it added Daily Variety, based in Los Angeles, to cover the motion-picture industry.
