Past Forward

“After the legal issues had more or less sorted out,we tried testing waters in the film industry again in 1991. We did a few documentaries and some telefilms,” says Pinaki Chakaraborty,who looks after the resuscitated New Theatres banner now. The apprehensions were not all unfounded. The industry,was nothing like how Sircar knew it to be,40 years after his father’s company stopped working officially. “I had started working with New Theatres in 1951-52. After the banner got caught up in a legal wrangle,I did work on films but not all that frequently. But the elephant logo of the Theatres was always in the back of my mind and I always wanted to re-invent it,” says Sircar.

One of the first steps he took before taking the final plunge into films again was to enable the screening of films produced by the company in television. “People have forgotten what our banner stood for. So,I tried getting several of the films screened in TV recently so that our new audience gets an idea about the kind of cinema we were associated with,” says Sircar. And keeping true to the tradition,the banner which even had the likes of Prithviraj Kapoor under its payroll,has resorted to a film adaptation of a story written by author Swapnomoy Chakraborty. The film,to be directed by debut filmmaker Somanth Gupta revolves around a love story in small town Bengal with the US-Iraq war as a backdrop. “Even Bengali films today are busy wishing away Indian-ness. Filmmakers shoot in foreign locales,talk about cities,about urban relationships,about NRIs. We have tried to bring India back in limelight. Our film,like our earlier ventures,is set in a village. In Murshidabad in this case,” says Sircar. Everything from studio atmosphere to technology has changed,but Sircar isn’t complaining. “You can always recreate the bonhomie on the sets and technology makes things easier,” he adds. “Our banner was also synonymous with famous literary adaptations. Our present venture Adoor Prem follows the tradition. Very few Bengali producers encourage adaptations of books today,” points out Sircar.

A part of the rejuvenation process includes the restoration of the film prints owned by the company. “The state government had kindly agreed to bear the cost of restoration of films. They had disbursed around Rs 5.5 lakh for the purpose. We have done quite a bit of work with that. I cherish my father’s foresight. He had sent several films for restoration himself to the national archives in Pune,” adds Sircar.