Story is always my top priority: Tarun Majumder

Kolkata: Director Tarun Majumder says as a filmmaker he has always followed Satyajit Ray by giving priority to story-telling above all.

The director, best known for his movies "Dadar Kirti", "Balika Badhu", "Phuleswari" and "Alo", is currently working on "Bhalobasar Bari", starring Rituparna Sengupta.

The film, also starring Mrinal Sen's favourite actor Sreela Majumder and theatre personality Bibhas Chakroborty, is based on a short story by writer-journalist Pracheto Gupta.

"Ray had famously said, 'If my film doesn't tell a story, it doesn't tell anything'," said the director, who has retained his trademark style of weaving plots around a happy middle class family, their little joys, sorrows and togetherness.

"If you consider any of my films, I had never deviated from my style, my narrative form and the musical part. And I see no reason I should do even now."

Majumder, who prefers the red soil of Birbhum district for the outdoors shoot, said, "Some rural scenes fascinate me. The green patches, the rows of palm trees skirting the horizon. Especially the border areas of Birbhum and Burdwan.

"I seek to recapture the smell and feel of this stretch. Having visited the place so many times I have an affinity with those people."

Rituparna Sengupta, who has starred in Majumdar's "Alo" and "Chander Bari". "Alo" was based on a Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay story.

"His film evokes the nostalgia about the simple, old world family ties in a Bengali household, which we are forgetting as our relationships are getting more layered and complicated. Working in such films reminds how we are caught in a state of flux," she said.

Asked about the reasons behind repeating Rituparna in back-to-back films, Majumder said, "It was not by design. My conscious effort has been to cast someone who will become the character herself. I am solely concerned about the characterisation."