There should be more films like `Chayamoy`: Dipankar Dey

Kolkata: Lamenting that directors do not usually take up children`s films, critically acclaimed actor Dipankar Dey says the newly-released flick `Chayamoy` shows how the Bengali film industry is ignoring this all important segment of kids.

"Director Haranath Chakroborty has shown how the children can be subjected to unadulterated fun, missing from the comic strip tales of the present day. Don`t know why the Bengali film industry is mostly giving this huge segment a miss. You can see how they are mobbing me," Satyajit Ray`s favourite actor told reporters at special screening of movie. Dey, who effortlessly essayed the character of Gagan Sapui, a self-seeker, greedy village gentry, said "children`s stories of Samaresh Basu and Sunil Gangopadhyay must be taken up for celluloid portrayal" besides every Bengali`s all-time favourite Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay who had also penned the popular Chayamoy. "My character Gagon can`t be compared with the ghost Banchha in `Banchharamer Bagan`, but yes I love to work in films where the narrative is simple and audience not treated with complicated themes," Dey, who had portrayed a character having traces of a late film maestro`s life, reasoned. Actor Sabyasachi Chakroborty, who essayed the role of a benign ghost, said if `Tollywood becomes haunted by spirits that spells good omen and all apparitions need not be exorcised." "Chayamoy is not a typical ghost film per se. It is more a fantasy tale and we need more such works to wean back our kids from other forms of entertainment." "Write in such a way that more children and adults flock to the theatres to see such movies to sustain the good run of Bengali movies," Sabyasachi told media about Chayamoy, produced by Rose Valley films. Popular actor Gaurab Chakraborty, having turned up in the character of simpleton Indrapratap who is the catalyst for the pot of gold hunt in the movie, said "in an era when everybody is losing the essential Bengaliness by aping west, the Bengali cinema and serials need to look for the roots, like Chayamoy and `Gaaner Opare`." In Chayamoy, Indraparatap lands in the village of Shimulgarh and gets caught in the quagmire of village politics where he is helped by the ghost, portrayed by real life `dad` Sabyasachi. PTI