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Actor-oriented genre helps me eke out a living in Tollywood : Ritwik Chakroborty

India Blooms News Service | | Sep 23, 2015, at 07:03 pm

Kolkata, Sep 23 (IBNS) With Cross Connection 2 set to hit the screens five years after the original frothy romance drama on youth set a new trend in Tollywood, its protagonist Ritwik Chakroborty says the film also changed the concept of hero-centric films in the Bengali industry.

"I would have been discarded from a film had Cross Connection and similar themed films not clicked with the non-hero concept in those days and ushered in the change in audience taste. They started looking for character-oriented films instead of hero-oriented films.

"If I am getting work these days I owe it to films like Cross Connection at the beginning of my career," the "Asha Jaoar Majhe" protagonist tells IBNS on the eve of the film's release.

Drawing parallels with Cross Connection's Akash, who was a struggler aiming to make his mark, to an established performer fighting twists in relationships now in Cross Connection 2, Ritwik says, "Yes it is a journey. And we all evolve over the period. Me and my celluloid portrayal."

"The change-over in my acting and personality is a continuous process, which had surely been caused by the films I turned up since the Cross Connection days. In the other films of Ranada-Sudeshnadi (as the director duo Abhijit Guha and Sudeshna Roy are called) and films by other directors. But I don't believe in the concept of marginalised characters," he says.

"None of my characters are marginalised. They are commoners. Reflecting me and you. I don't appreciate such labeling. The foley artiste in Shabdo was not a marginalised person as well. But yes he was a commoner. The tale of commoner in different genres has now many takers among the Bangla audience," the national award winner Bakita Byaktigato actor says.

Sudeshna, whose Mayer Biye is also awaiting release, says their three youth-centric films - Cross Connection, Prem By Chance and Bapi Bari Jaa representing different genres helped in changing the concept of casting where all the actors are stars and not big names.

"Cross Connection 2 is the first true sequel in Bengali films since the story of the original film is taken forward and the characters move on with the passage of time. The characters' names have remained the same though some of the cast have changed. In other sequels here, there is a fresh new story and the characters change accordingly," Sudeshna says.

Adds Abhijit Guha, "We had nurtured the dream to make films with different content and form. But we always sought to retain the Bengaliness in the core of our heart. May be the looks, the shots and the get-up of some of the characters have changed but the spirit has remained the same in all works. The spirit which the Kolkatan will define at one glance."

Bong Connection, Ekti Tarar Khonje actor Sayan Munshi plays an important role in the film Cross Connection 2 which has also Buno Hans actor Tanushree and Rimjhim Mitra of Kalkijug in the cast.

# Tollywood # Ritwik Chakroborty

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