Ektu Aalor Khonje
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Ipsita Moitra
Pavel Dutta
Debraj Sengupta
Kakali Dan
Prabir Halder
| Ektu Aalor Khonje | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Bhaskar Banerjee |
| Screenplay by | Bhaskar Banerjee |
| Starring | Mahendra Dan Ipsita Moitra Pavel Dutta Debraj Sengupta Kakali Dan Prabir Halder |
| Cinematography | Bhaskar Banerjee |
| Edited by | Bhaskar Banerjee |
Production company | |
| Country | India |
| Language | Bengali |
| Budget | ₹6,50,000 (US$10,500) |
Ektu Aalor Khonje (In Search of Light)[1] is an upcoming Indian Bengali-language drama film directed by Bhaskar Banerjee and produced by Curlyvine Films & Productions Pvt Ltd. This debut indie film by director Bhaskar Banerjee explores the question that has plagued humanity since the beginning, the mysteries of life and death, by introducing the audience to the life of a mystic and enlightened soul called Dadathakur staying in disguise in a remote village in West Bengal.
Production was interrupted because of funding problems and it took nearly five years for the film to be completed. The film is shot mainly on location, on a very limited budget, featuring mostly amateur actors, and is made by an inexperienced crew. It was a group of ten people who played every role from cast to crew.
Local holy man Dadathakur is a teacher and healer, providing guidance and philosophical instruction to generations of villagers and is regarded with great esteem by all who meet him. He is a locus of village wisdom and imparts philosophical guidances from a variety of sources in his effort to explain the vagaries and iniquities of daily life and toil in the village, set in West Bengal.
Yet mystery surrounds his beginnings, and it is Dadathakur's past that film director Banerjee explores in this upcoming indie production. Long before becoming known for village wisdom, Dadathakur was an impoverished writer by the name of Rishob who was married to a young beautiful woman named Manoshi. Due to the dire circumstances and poverty of their early lives, Manoshi dies unexpectedly, leaving Rishob itinerant and without purpose in life. This event scars his soul and causes him to question the material struggle of existence and the importance of life and death in the face of such injustice and complacency on the part of the universe to his sadness.
To rediscover himself and his purpose in this world, Rishob becomes Dadathakur, and moves to Jibanpur village where he learns and perfects his craft and life's wisdom. The film "In Search of Light" (Ektu aalor khonje) begins thirty years into Dadathakur's ministry in the village. Rishob's new life as a holy man is complicated when his son Sourjyo, long lost to him and time, arrives in the village of Jibanpur after receiving reliable word from a family friend that his father Rishob is alive and well, dwelling somewhere in disguise. Dadathakur is once again forced to face questions of life and death as well as the meaning of it all as he confronts his son from a previous life and reveals the secrets of Rishob's past to a man he only has just met, shedding the pretense of Dadathakur to once again become the hobbled man that led him on the path to spiritual enlightenment in the first place.