Kahaani’s Rana in Mumbai

Parambrata Chatterjee’s Bengali film will open in the city next week.

Parambrata Chatterjee, Vidya Balan’s cop companion Rana in Kahaani, is in Mumbai with a Bengali film, Bhooter Bhabishyat (The Future Of The Past). The film is lining up for a theatrical release next Friday, a month after it surprised the box-office in Bengal. “Kahaani opened on March 9, Bhooter Bhabishyat a week later, it was a double whammy! I’m not expecting it to be as big a hit in Mumbai but it’s good to know that Bengali movies that earlier only reached Delhi and Bangalore, are coming to Mumbai too,” says the actor.

Parambrata admits that with Kahaani’s success, the horizon has widened and he’s discussing other offers from Bollywood. He was studying in England for over a year when Sujoy Ghosh approached him for Kahaani, and he was shooting for the film just two days after returning to Kolkata. “Kahaani, for me, was a journey of rediscovering my city and will always be close to my heart,” he says. “I wouldn’t even mind being re-christened Rana.”

Bhooter Bhabishyat, a satire, is about ghosts helping an ad filmmaker with a storyline for his debut feature. They even help finance it in an effort to save their derelict haunted mansion from being razed and converted into a shopping mall. It has a dance of ghosts along the lines of Satyajit Ray’s iconic ‘Bhooter raja dilo bor…’ from Goopey Gyne Bagha Bye (Adventures Of Goopey And Bagha).

Parambrata, who made his directorial debut with Jiyo Kaka (Long Live Kaka) last year, admits the ghosts haven’t been of much help in real life but he’s working on a script for his next directorial venture, which is an action thriller. Meanwhile in June, he’s starting a film produced by Workshop, a company he launched with actor Rudranil Ghosh and industrialist Dipak Raha.

He says, “It’s a comedy revolving around two friends. There’s a lot of male bonding, it’ll probably star me. Both are Bengali films. I’d definitely love to act in Hindi movies, but when it comes to producing and directing, Bengali is my medium.”

Kahaani-is-scheduled-to-release-on-March-9