Actor Anirban Bhattacharya is all set to make his debut as a feature film director with SVF Entertainment’s upcoming horror-comedy Ballavpurer Roopkotha. The theatre and film actor recently made his mark with his web-series Mandaar, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, for Hoichoi. Ballavpurer Roopkotha is based on eminent playwright Badal Sarkar’s play of the same name.
While the cast has not been revealed yet, Bhattacharya has joined forces with Prateek Dutta to write the screenplay.
The film is set in the crumbling palace of Ballavpur, inhabited by the last descendant of the Ray dynasty, Bhupati Ray, and his manservant Manohar. Both are burdened by debt and they spend their days without hope until one day they receive a proposal from someone interested in buying the property. What follows is comical confusion caused by the actions of Bhupati Ray, Manohar, the buyers and a ghost that makes Ballavpur Rajbari a temple of chaos for one night.
Bhattacharya, who is excited about the project, said, “I have always been extremely fond of horror comedies and satires since childhood and needless to say we have been fortunate enough to get some fantastic horror comedies from great filmmakers over the years. I won’t say that this particular genre hasn't been tapped by Bengali filmmakers before as there have been Bengali movies that parallelly experimented with horror and comedy in the same narrative. However, the number is quite low.”
The director further said that Ballavpurer Roopkotha would be light-hearted yet surprising. “My last work explored the dark, gory side of human conscience but this time I want to keep it as blithe and effervescent as possible. However, Prateek and I don’t aim to incorporate regardless substances in the narrative that might impact the sustenance of the audience while movie watching. Starting off my first feature film as a director with SVF and I am glad that they have entrusted me with creating a project that I have always wanted to,” he added.
The music of the film will be composed by Subhadeep Guha and Debraj Bhattacharya while Soumik Haldar will join the team as the cinematographer.