Indranil Roychowdhury on Chhotolok: I want to make a pure Bengali thriller without any influence of Hollywood, Nordic or Korean style

Indranil Roychowdhury has started shooting Chhotolok for Zee5 after months of shaping the script and workshops with artistes. Billed as a thriller, the show has Priyanka Sarkar, Daminee Basu, Gourav Chakrabarty, Indrani Halder, Ushasi Ray, Ushasie Chakraborty, and others playing key characters. The filmmaker, known to be a perfectionist, wishes to present a ‘pure Bengali thriller’ for his audience. 

As the long schedule of shooting started earlier this week, the director talks to OTTplay about why he has picked a thriller and how he wants to make the genre more relatable for the audience. 

Indranil said that he has been wishing to make a thriller for a long time. “I always wanted to make a thriller. Ekti Bangali Bhooter Goppo is close to a thriller but there are limitations, “ he said. The 2015 film feature Jaya Ahsan, Joydeep Mukherjee, Sourav Chakraborty, and others. 

This time, Indranil wants to elaborate the genre and make a ‘pure Bengali thriller’. “I wanted to make a Bengali thriller for a long time. A thriller that is not influenced by or follows the path of Hollywood, Nordic or Korean concepts. In our country, their stories somehow fall flat. I wanted to make a modern Bengali thriller that fits perfectly in our taste,” explained the director.

Chhotolok is an elaborate story of power and revenge. It has a huge star cast and a long shooting schedule. It is slated to drop on Zee5 by the end of April, the beginning of May in 2023.