Teaser for existential horror Bengali film Kalkokkho released

The teaser and poster for the Bengali-language feature Kalkokkho (House Of Time) was released yesterday by renowned filmmaker Goutam Ghose at the Press Club, Kolkata.

Written and directed by Rajdeep Paul and Sarmistha Maiti, the film has been produced by Anjan Bose of the Aurora Film Corporation.

The film blends magical realism and existential horror to depict the unreal situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The story is set in the middle of a contagious pandemic, where an apathetic but adept doctor is taken hostage by a young woman in a desperate attempt to ensure the safety of her family.

Captive in an almost desolate house inhabited by the paranoid young woman, an amnesiac old woman and a lonely girl, the doctor discovers that forces beyond his comprehension are at play and he might be trapped not only in space but also in time.

Speaking about the film, the directors said, “Apocalypse, end of the world, time loop — all these dreaded fantasies of science-fiction stories became real in 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were locked up not only in our homes, but as if also in time, living the same day again and again with a constant reminder of our own mortality, trying to save ourselves from an invisible enemy, a disease whose fatality was as mysterious as its cure. This was the psychological state from which the story of Kalkokkho germinated.

“Yet, in these depths of darkness, we witnessed beauty. In the first months of lockdown, pollution went down, nature became beautiful and animals were seen roaming freely on empty city streets. It was as if nature behaves with humanity the same way humanity behaves with nature. And this became a primary theme in the relationship of the abducted doctor and his three female abductors in the film.

"As filmmakers we realized that the crisis of this pandemic was nothing unique when we consider the history of humankind, and these crises only unfurl the darkest and brightest recesses of our minds and souls. Therefore, we wanted to connect the now with the forever, the temporal with the eternal. Thus, we blended mythological symbolism and spiritual allegory with magic realism and existential horror to make this strange film about our strange experience in one of the strangest junctures of human history.”

Congratulating the filmmakers, Ghose said, “Experimentation in cinema should always be welcomed, otherwise cinema cannot grow. I congratulate this oldest functioning cinema company, my friend Anjan and the young filmmakers to be able to create Kalkokkho in one of the toughest times of history — the pandemic, which has reminded us of our constant mortality, and thus human beings should become more humane and kind to their fellow beings or else the day is not far when we all shall perish."

Kalkokkho has been selected in the Competition section at the 20th Dhaka International Film Festival, which will be held in January 2022.