P Bhattacharya
Bengali cinema’s popular actor Deepak Adhikari aka Dev opines that though OTT has taken India’s regional cinema to a global audience, every filmmaker wants his or her film to be shown on the big screen.
“Cinema is made for 72 mm. Cinema is made for the big screen,” he said addressing “Table Talks” event on the penultimate day of the International Film Festival of India in Goa on November 27.
“Somewhere deep down, every filmmaker wants his or her film to be showcased on the big screen, even if for a day! “Cinema is made for 72 mm. Cinema is made for the big screen,” Dev said.
The actor, whose latest feature film “Tonic” was shown at the Festival, said the movie was screened continuously for 111 days in theatres in the post-covid-19 period last year – a feat very few films in that time have achieved.
“Tonic” is the story of a man in his seventies (played by veteran Paran Bandopadhyay) who lives with his wife, son, daughter-in-law and a granddaughter. The authoritative attitude and over-possessiveness of his son creates friction in their family. Jaladhar plans for a foreign trip and meets a travel agent named Tonic (the role played by Dev in the film) who later turns out to be a change-maker in their life. As their foreign trip gets cancelled, the old couple plan a visit to Darjeeling without telling their son but Jaladhar falls ill there.
“If you have tonic in life, you can conquer the world,” the father says.
The film’s director Avijit Sen said the theme of “Tonic” is that every person needs a support system to lead a happy life and he wanted to give a catchy title which reveals the theme in no uncertain terms. Hence, the name ‘Tonic’.
Dev said “the film is a manifestation of today’s generation which is over-protective and over-concerned generation who overlook their parents’ desires, dreams and wishes.”
