Exclusive! Roktopolash director Kamaleswar Mukherjee: It is edge-of-the-seat thriller dotted with red herrings

After his OTT debut with Mohomaya on Hoichoi, director Kamaleswar Mukherjee is back to the digital space with his socio-political thriller, Rokto Polash. While Ananya Chatterjee and Swastika Mukherjee-starrer Mohomaya was a psychological drama, Rokto Polash is a socio-political thriller with Silajit in the lead. Besides, the series also features Debdut Ghosh, Ananya Sengupta, Utsav Mukherjee, Roja Paromita Dey and others. Kamaleswar also plays a key role in the series, which had a direct-to-OTT release after a premiere show at SRFTI auditorium in Kolkata.

Talking about the series, Kamaleswar told OTTplay that he wanted to do a political series in the current scenario. "It is only because I think the younger generation wants to watch movies that depict their time and the political past. While shooting the series, I learnt a lot of new things. I realised what an ensemble cast can deliver.”

The thriller was shot during the winter last year in the remote location of Belpahari, Jhargram. It has a reference to the Jnaneswari Express train derailment incident that took place in West Midnapore, West Bengal, in 2010. In the series, a group of seven urban tourists is taken hostage by a radical political group at a resort in the Jhargram area. As the story progresses, we discover that these innocent tourists get caught in the crossfire between paramilitary forces and political extremists. “The series explores the backstories of these tourists and as it progresses, their dark sides get revealed. We also focussed on how the administration reaches out to them. This is an edge-of-the-seat thriller dotted with red herrings,” explained the director.  

Talking about his crew members, Kamaleswar further said, “Tuban, our DOP, and Tanmay, the production designer, have enriched the project. Though the shoot was hectic, our unit stayed like a family. This is an elaborate and slightly expensive project and we couldn’t have completed the schedule without their support.”

The series was dropped on May 30 on the platform, KLiKK.