National Awarded filmmaker Ram Kamal Mukherjee returns to his roots in Kolkata once again after his magnum opus Binodiini-Ekti Natir Upakhyan. This time he promises to serve a completely different genre for his audiences with a slice of life cinema – Lokkhikantopur Local.
Ram Kamal’s film cracked a huge casting coupe, in bringing unseen mega stars under one roof for the first time in a Bengali film. The film stars Rituparna Sengupta, Kaushik Ganguly, Paoli Dam, Chandrayee Ghosh, Indranil Sengupta, Sangita Sinha, Shaurya Bhattacharjee, Sayani Ghosh, Rajnandini and Debasish in a pivotal role.
Produced under the banner of Angel Creations, the film has been shot across various locations in Bengal by ace cinematographer Ayan Sil and introduces Manish Chakraborty as music director. “For any director it’s an honour to work with such professional actors who knows their craft well enough. From Kaushik da to Ritu di, from Paoli to Chandrayee, everyone was so involved in the minutest details that it helped us as a team to deliver nothing less than best,” says Mumbai based filmmaker Ram Kamal Mukherjee.
Sangita Sinha who plays one of the female protagonist and also doubles up as the producer of the film, went through rigorous training under theatre exponent Daminee Beni Basu. “I believe, cinema is completely directors medium, Ram Kamal da wanted a certain body language and diction which Beni di helped me in achieving,” says Sangita who worked with Mukherjee in his internationally acclaimed short film Rickshawala in 2020. “We have been planning to collaborate and do a nice feature film. When Ram Kamal da approached me with thie subject, I instantly jumped out of joy. I know for a fact that this film will connect with everybody,” says Sangita, who is planning to join hands with a Mumbai based studio for distribution and sales of the film. “Talks are on, we will announce everything once we sign on the dotted lines,” added Sangita.
The film deals with different standards of life and vocation which has been beasutilly weaved in through the right fabrics by costumes designer Poulami Gupta, while veteran art director Amit Chatterjee who worked earlier with Mukherjee for his Hindi shirt Broken Frame reunites. Mukherjee’s favorite Pronoy Dasgupta reunites after Binodiini Ekti Natir Upakhyan as editor of this film, while Paawaan Aagarwal joins the team as Associate Director and Casting Director for the project.
Rituparna Sengupta who plays the role of a middle class homemaker in the film gets nostalgic talking about her association with Ram Kamal. “I call him Aarkay, a name which was fondly showered on him when he was a cub reporter in Kolkata almost three decades ago. I had just started by journey as an actor while he was freelancing for a Mumbai weekly. That’s how we bonded, and we have always been in touch. I have seen Aarkay’s film Season’s Greetings and Ek Duaa, and I feel that he mastered the art of sketching the character graph like a symphony. Every chord matters in his framework,” says Rituparna Sengupta, who is riding high on her latest commercial success Ajagya.