Still from the short film Home by Kolkata-based artist Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Kolkata-based actor turned filmmaker Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee’s short film Home has been selected for an international human rights film festival ‘I View World’.
Home is a film inspired by the poem Arundhathi Subramaniam which Mr. Chatterjee’s sister had recommended to him a while back. The director spoke to The Hindu and said, “The poem stayed within me for years. The poem was a trajectory of images which led to this film.” He said that the movie is like a build up of the poem and also a deconstruction of it in certain ways.
Mr. Chatterjee spoke about his maiden short film and added, “The biggest inspiration behind the film was a lot of triggers. What I saw while growing up, the women I have seen growing up, the entire spectrum of what it means to be a woman in this world.”
The director has chosen to not sell the film to any OTT platform because as he likes to put it, this film is a “very important voice for me, me being a part of the diaspora of this country”.
The short film is a silent, black and white movie which takes inspiration from the lives of women around the director’s life and traces the trajectory of gender politics featuring twelve top women actors from the film industry in Kolkata. Presented by Rituparna Sengupta and mentored by Sohag Sen, this short was also screened at Kolkata International film festival and Birmingham Indian film festival.
The film features Sudipa Basu, Sohag Sen, Sohini Sarkar, Aparajita Adhya, Bidipta Chakraborty, Chandreyee Ghosh, Debjani Chatterjee, Tuhina Das, Ratasree, Sauraseni Maitra, Paramita Saha, Suparna Datta, and Subhasree Patel.
The film is set to be screened at Delhi on March 15 at Travancore Palace, and will be presented by Engendered (an umbrella arts organisation) which speaks about gender and identities through art. For years this festival has hosted stalwart filmmakers like Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair, Aparna Sen, Onir, and so many others.
“This festival is a melting pot of arts that lead gender to be a spectrum and not boxes. I am glad that my film found a fit here,” Mr. Chatterjee said.
This year’s selection at the festival, led by Myna Mukherjee, will also witness the Delhi premiere of Puwraton, a movie starring Sharmila Tagore, Rituparna Sengupta, and Indroneil Sengupta and directed by Suman Ghosh.
The film festival will be held between March 12-19 and is open to the public.
Published – March 12, 2025 07:29 pm IST
