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Begum Jaan starring Vidya Balan will go to floor in Aug: Srijit

| | Feb 29, 2016, at 07:47 pm
Kolkata, Feb 29 (IBNS) Buoyed by the success of his Bengali film Rajkahini, based on the partition blues on the marginalised of society, director Srijit Mukherjee is upbeat about its Hindi adaptation Begum Jaan, starring Vidya Balan in the lead role.

"Begum Jaan is neither an interpretation nor a  remake of Rajkahini, but ideally describing it is loosely based on Rajkahini set in the western Punjab provinces," Srijit tells IBNS on the sidelines of the launch of 'Social Krira', a digital venture.

He says the scripting will be jointly done by him and a well-known name in the Hindi film industry known for subtle phrases and expressions in his scripts and the pre-production work has already started with shooting slated to begin in August.

Vidya Balan had earlier confirmed in Kolkata "I will be playing the role of Begum Jaan (the original Bengali version lead role essayed by Rituparna Sengupta) and shooting will begin by mid 2016."

Enthused by the hype over Bengali family drama Belaseshe's commercial release in Bangladesh, Srijit says, "Why only Bangladesh, there is the prospect of the entire South East Asian market for Indian films.  Bangladesh  and Pakistan are opening up for Indian films. And I am hopeful Begum Jaan may tap that depending on how the response comes from the Bangladesh release of our films."

The Chotushkone director says social media has facilitated the interaction between the audience and film makers and online promotion of Bengali films has become very dynamic and contemporary with the audience reviews also included in the online promo of films which also gives screening updates and pre-release events.

"For me social media is my ABP [he referred to the regionally powerful Ananda Bazar Patrika group], my hoarding where I can talk about my work, my product. But we edit out abuses because that is not done in such sites. If anyone has to pour out vitriol he can inbox me."

Srijit talks about the founders of 'Social Krira' as two workaholic youngsters who even switched on laptop at 2 am to include certain contents for the Chotushkone online page on getting his phone call and "giving brilliant suggestions which changed the norm of Bengali film promotion on social media with all or most of the productions falling in line afterwards."     

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