EXCLUSIVE: Indian filmmaker Bikas Mishra’s Chauranga is set to start shooting this month after securing investment from Singapore-based Surya Ventures.
The film will be jointly produced by Surya Ventures’ Mohan Mulani and Onir and Sanjay Suri of India’s Anticlock Films. The cast includes actor-producer Sanjay Suri (I Am) and Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane).
Inspired by a real incident, Chauranga revolves around a 14-year-old Dalit (“untouchable”) boy who is killed for writing a love letter to a girl in his village.
The film is a feature debut for Mishra whose short film Dance Of Ganesha travelled to several film festivals including Clermont Ferrand, Rotterdam and Busan. During development, the project won awards from India’s Film Bazaar and the Goteborg film festival. It was also selected for Berlinale Talent Campus Script Station, NFDC Screenwriters’ Lab and Paris Project’s co-production market.
Onir and Sanjay Suri have credits including National Award-winning omnibus I Am, directed by Onir, which deals with subjects including child abuse and same-sex relationships.
Production on Chauranga is scheduled to start on September 20 in Bolpur, a town in West Bengal best known for the Visva Bharati University established by Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore.
“Four years of our continuous efforts are finally coming to the culmination. We searched the length and breadth of the country for the location and we’re happy to find the locations here in Bolpur, the land of Tagore,” said Mishra.
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