Kol cine-fraternity elated over city link to Cannes Grand Prix win
Times of India | 27 May 2024
Kolkata: Immediately after the announcement of Payal Kapadia’s Grand Prix win for ‘All We Imagine as Light’, Mithu Das spoke to her at Cannes. Her elder son, Ranabir Das, is the cinematographer and co-producer of the Grand Prix winner that created history for India at Cannes. “Well done! That’s what I told him. Payal too is family and I was elated at the win,” the proud mother told TOI on Sunday.
On Saturday, her younger son — Dhritiman — who is the film’s music director – was at home.“It was my 32nd birthday. My friends had come home and all of us including my parents watched the awards together,” Dhritiman said.
Mithu recollected that this was not the first win for Payal and Ranabir’s work. “I know how good they are as film-makers. I have watched the first cut, it is very well-made. Before the win, my son had said that the organisers asked them to stay back. I immediately knew they would win something,” she said.
Her family friend, director Anik Dutta, is also equally thrilled. Ranabir had started assisting Dutta when he made advertisements. “He was the special assistant director in ‘Bhooter Bhobisyot’. He even acted in one small sequence for my film. I am very proud of his achievement,” said Dutta.
Cinematographer Aveek Mukhopadhyay had met Ranabir during the shooting of the same film. “His work in the trailer is raw yet it retains a dreamlike quality. The cold city palette is translated well,” Mukhopadhyay said.
Tridib Poddar is a proud teacher today. Sometime in 2008-09, Poddar had joined the Mass Communication & Videography department at St Xavier’s College, Kolkata as a professor where Ranabir enrolled as a student. Poddar still remembers the 19-year-old’s script submission for a project. “I had gone through it and shared my opinion with Gopalan Mullik, who was then teaching film studies at St Xavier’s. I appreciated Ranabir’s sense of abstraction, of what he tried to express through his writing,” said Poddar.
“Ranabir’s images are full of the nuances. This collaboration between Ranabir and Payal is important at various levels. He has complemented her well, ” added Poddar, whose diploma film at SRFTI was officially a part of Cannes’ Cinefondation in 2002.
Mullik said “The trailer has an international look, it doesn’t look earthy in the Indian context. It is great that a cinematographer from Kolkata has his work appreciated at Cannes. The last time an Indian film with a Bengali cinematographer was nominated for Palme D’Or was Soumendu Roy’s ‘Ghare Baire’ in 1984.”