Parambrata Chatterjee: In Tollywood, we need larger-than-life films and angel investors who will not think about an immediate return

Parambrata Chatterjee – one of the busiest actors in the country – is currently shooting in the UK for a national project. Despite the pressure of national projects, the actor does not shy away from his roots – Bengali films. In a recent chat with OTTplay, he talked about the current state of the Bengali film industry and why we need larger-than-life films. 

According to Parambrata, unlike Bengal, it is usually the larger-than-life films that do good business in theatres all over India. “In Bengal, people go to watch family dramas in theatres. In the rest of the country, primarily family dramas are not watched on the big screen. There is a clear demand and mandate for larger-than-life films in theatres. It has more or less been observed that family dramas, chamber thrillers, or slice-of-life dramas are working more on OTTs,” he suggested. 

Parambrata also identified that there is an absence of big-budget, larger-than-life films in Bengal. He also pointed out that there is a market for such films. “Films like KGF 2 and RRR proved that Rs 26/27 cr can be raised only from Bengal. We also lack such larger-than-life films. And there is a very clear reason for it. No matter how tightly you make a larger-than-life film, you will need some amount of budget for that. The Bengali market doesn’t offer you a return on that amount of investment,” said the actor. He further elaborated that a successful Bengali film today earns between Rs 3-5 cr. This is way lower than the return that other smaller regional industries like the Marathi or Malayalam industry, earn.  

The Aranyak-actor believes that this problem can be addressed only if there are people to invest money. “We need angel investors, who will not expect a huge return in the first couple of films. We will have to be consistent for a while before we reach a break-even point. There cannot be an immediate return in the journey of the revival of Bengali cinema. This revival process will take 10 years at least to get back on track. Perhaps an investor has to go on speeding Rs 25 cr before the thing of making money out of the films, said Patrambrata.