When it comes to portraying the travails of ordinary mortals, no one excels like multiple National Award-winning filmmaker Goutam G h o s e. T h e s t r u g g l e o f t h e underprivileged sections of the society and the victory of humanity despite all odds reign supreme in most of this master storyteller’s films, which have a socio-political backdrop. Be it his first National Award-winning Hindi film, Paar, or the latest Nation Award-winning Bengali film Sankhachil (2016), the 70-year-old has never failed to touch hearts with his nuanced portrayals on celluloid.
This time around, the auteur is back with his sixth Hindi film, Raahgir (The Wayfarers) based on a short story, One day in the Rain by celebrated Bengali author Prafulla Roy. “The film is a journey of ordinary people in cinematic time and space to reveal the true face of humanity in today’s selfish world. The journey in Raahgir is a beautiful tale of love and compassion and explores the human feelings and the camaraderie of the poor, who can easily surrender their own fragile existence to save another human
life,” tells Ghose.
But shooting Raahgir was a very daunting task for the director since he wanted to capture the 85-minute film in shades of grey all through with occasional rain to depict melancholy and romanticism, all at the same time. He zeroed in on Ranchi as his location since the terrain there is rocky and has slopes, further accentuating the struggle and pain that the characters undertake and the hurdles they encounter. “My producer Amit Agarwal was extremely cooperative and I scheduled the shooting dates in consultation with Accuweather.com We shot the entire film in 20 days flat. The weather prediction was 95 per cent accurate, thanks to the modern technology,” says the director who is extremely happy with the performances of his main cast, comprising Adil Hussain, Tilottoma Shome and Neeraj Kabi as well as Omkar Das Manikpuri.
“They acted so well that some of my Italian associates wondered whether I picked up locals for the shoot. What is special about Adil, Neeraj and the others is that they not only bring acting skills to the table but are also very sensitive human beings,” says Ghose, adding that the film is all set to premiere at the Busan Film Festival in South Korea on October 7 (with further screenings on 8th and 9th). Apart from Busan, the film will also do rounds of a few European and Indian festivals before its theatrical release some time this December.
Besides Raahgir, Ghose is also busy with pre-production work of an Indo- European trilingual film (English, Hindi and partly Italian) on the adventures of a 12-year-old boy with a socio-political background. “I am also planning yet another Indo-Bangladesh venture, which will be in Bengali and will most probably star Prosenjit,” says Ghose without revealing much.