National award winning filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly brings romantic-thriller Kaberi Antardhan, which features Prosenjit Chatterjee and Srabanti Chatterjee in the lead, on the big screens on Jan 20. Speaking to IBNS correspondent Souvik Ghosh, Ganguly spoke about mystery, thrillers and his crafted character Kaberi essayed by Srabanti.

Excerpts...

Q. Your two films with Prosenjit Chatterjee had earlier garnered very positive reviews. Did you feel any challenge to make Kaberi Antardhan even better than the two?

A. There is a saturation to the audience’s liking. If I start thinking of making a film with Prosenjit Chatterjee, the work will be ruined. So I believe in making a film as a team which comprises everyone including Bumba-da.

Q. You always cast based on characters. What made you rope in Srabanti Chatterjee for the first time in films?

A. I have worked with Srabanti on television and we know each other. We are respectful towards each other’s works. Srabanti is an extremely good actor. The way Srabanti has disowned her heroine avatar in commercial films and ventured into films to prove her mettle as actors is commendable. The valuation of Srabanti as an actor in the era of content-driven films is the need of the hour.

Q. It is amazing to see how the era of superstars is taken over by the era of actors!

A. Bumba-da (Prosenjit Chatterjee) had once told me the heroes of the content-driven films will not be able to fit into the commercial films but the mainstream film stars can do the other way round. Now we are seeing it everywhere. Look at Ankush (Ankush Hazra), Dev who are trying to emerge as actors.

Q. What was your briefing to Srabanti for this character?

A. I had asked her to be like a normal girl. Her character is from north Bengal but educated in Kolkata. She had a lot of scenes of emotional turbulence.

Q. What do you find in Srabanti as her speciality that resembles Kaberi?

A. I feel Srabanti has an unpredictability. I found Srabanti’s unpredictable nature, power and confidence are similar to that of Kaberi. Unpredictability, I feel, is confidence.

Q. Why did you choose the 1970s as the time frame of your film?

A. My film is a romantic and suspense thriller. I am not able to write a thriller in the present time of mobile phones and technology because the present technology-driven world has become very easy to solve a mystery. This is why we tend to go back to Feluda and Byomkesh when it comes to thrillers. Withdrawal of technology is important for the survival of mystery. My aim was also to showcase the survival and consequence of love in the middle of revolution. For this, the emergency period of 1975 was appropriate.