Even before Hate Story, Paoli Dam was the talk of the town in Kolkata thanks to her sex scenes and full frontal nudity in Sri Lankan filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Bengali film Chatrak (Mushroom) in 2011. Even though the full monty clips were removed from the promotional videos, Pritam Sarkar, director of Flop-e, watched it on Youtube and, disgusted, refused to allow Paoli to promote his film.
So why did she do such a film? Paoli reasons, “Vimukthi is an international filmmaker, winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes for The Forsaken Land (2005). Chatrak was world cinema and officially premiered at Cannes. I walked the red carpet in a Dhakai sari and the film got a standing ovation after the screening. It was such a high representing the country at such a prestigious international festival. The scene was necessary in the movie. I have worked with the stalwarts of Bengali cinema such as Gautam Ghose (Kaalbela and Moner Manush) and Rituparno Ghosh (Shab Chitra Kalponik) and no one has pointed fingers at me.”