Docu traces French identity & Puducherry merger debate
Times of India | 20 January 2026
Kolkata: Pankaj Rishi Kumar's ‘To Die A Frenchman', the only Indian documentary to have a world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), was privately screened at SRFTI on Monday. The film, which has some crew members from SRFTI, traces the life of a man who identified as French by "birth, spirit, memory and hope" and who questioned the merger of the French colony in Puducherry with India.
Kumar went to Puducherry in 2012 to make a film on the Tamil French community who were voting for the French presidential elections. While making his first film ‘Two Flags', Kumar came across Monsieur Mounissamy. "He had a complete counter-argument. A lot of these people were disillusioned by what the French did and what the Indian govt did. That's what prompted me to take up his story independently of my first film," he said.
Kumar considers the film significant in the context of Chandernagore. "It was home to the first group of residents from the French settlements who agreed to the merger through a democratic process. However, what may irk those living in Chandernagore is the manner in which the French ultimately withdrew from India," Kumar said.
The film, which has Basab Mullik, Tangella Madhavi and Fatema Kagalwala as fine cut consultants, Ritajit Raychaudhuri as colourist, and Pritam Das as sound mixer, begins with a retelling of history about how Puducherry blossomed under the French rule and was famously known as ‘A Pearl on the Coromandel Coast'. "But in 1962, the French packed their flag and left. They offered a choice – to remain or to belong," Kumar added.
Some went to sleep as "subjects of France" but woke up as "strangers in their own land". Among the few who refused to stay silent was Mounissamy, who led an organisation called the Senior Citizens of French Origin. "What the film captures with great tenderness is this quiet, almost invisible rebellion of a man who refused to let history erase him. His struggle was about dignity, belonging, and the painful question of where one truly comes from when history has fractured you," said Tangella.