Raajhorshee De's A Separate Sky to depict turmoil caused by the Citizenship Amendment Act

Filmmaker Raajhorshee De is all set to direct his short film, A Separate Sky (2020), which is set against the backdrop of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the protests that erupted across the nation against it last year. The short, featuring Bonny Sengupta, Richa Sharma, Kamaleswar Mukherjee and Sudipta Chakraborty among others, will tell the story of a female Muslim professor’s efforts to ensure peace and harmony in her college, during this politically turbulent period.

Ruksana Chowdhury (Sharma), who is determined to eradicate discrimination based on caste and religion in her college, inspires her students to question instead of relying on blind faith. Rayan Mukherjee (Bonny Sengupta), the son of a Hindu politician and Parvez Khan (Debapriyo Mukherjee), the son of a Muslim politician, study in the same college.

On the day of the college's annual function, two political parties decide to exhibit their power by attacking the college campus. The short film depicts how Ruksana eventually succeeds in changing the mindset of both Rayan and Parvez, who are used as tools for propaganda by their fundamentalist fathers, and creates unity among the students.

According to De, he was deeply disturbed by the attack on the students of Jamila Milia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University by the Delhi police, last year, “This will be the first film from Bengal which will talk about the Citizenship Amendment Act. We have always dreamt of a secular India and this film will make a strong statement on it, both personally and politically,” said the director.

Dey will start shooting the film from mid-September in Kolkata. Produced by Imran Zaki and Lal Bhatia, A Separate Sky has been also inspired by Amir Aziz’s poem 'Sab Yaad Rakha Jaega', written during the protests against the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). The film will be shot by Gopi Bhagat and the music will be composed by Ashu Chakraborty.