Gotro

Gotro
Film poster
Directed by	Nandita Roy Shiboprosad Mukherjee
Written by	Shiboprosad Mukherjee Nandita Roy
Screenplay by	Nandita Roy
Produced by	Nandita Roy Shiboprosad Mukherjee
Starring	Anashua Majumdar Nigel Akkara Manali Dey Ambarish Bhattacharya Saheb Chatterjee Badshah Moitra
Cinematography	Supriyo Dutta
Edited by	Moloy Laha
Music by	Anindya Chatterjee
Production company	Windows Production
Release date	23 August 2019
Running time	141 minutes
Country	India
Language	Bengali
Box office	est. ₹5 crore

Gotro is a 2019 Indian Bengali drama film, directed and produced by Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee. It was inspired by the life story of Director Shiboproshad Mukherjee's mother, which the duo (Nandita Roy and Shiboproshad Mukherjee) portrayed on screen. The film was released on 23 August 2019 with cast which included Anashua Majumdar, Nigel Akkara, Ambarish Bhattacharya, Saheb Chatterjee, Manali Dey and Badshah Moitra.^[1][2]

Synopsis[]

Gotro is a story of faith, love and belief, revolving around Mukti Debi (played by Anashua Majumdar), an educated woman, who lives in an old-world mansion named Gobinda Dham while her son, Anirban (played by Saheb Chatterjee), is settled abroad with his family. Tareq Ali (played by Nigel Akkara) is a former convict who is now trying to redeem himself and restart his life. He is employed by Anirban as the caretaker of his mother and her estate. What follows is a tale of how a mother-son relationship begins to build between Mukti Debi and Tareq, while the former is unaware of his Muslim identity, depicting the underlying social issue of the era.Mukti Debi and Tareq discover the meaning of life as they unfold love for each other and she started loving her as her own son. Gotro is a sweet take on the mother – son relationship with a message of strong communal harmony.^[3]

Picture from the premiere

Cast[]

• Anashua Majumdar as Mukti Debi
• Nigel Akkara as Tareq Ali/Tarak Guha
• Ambarish Bhattacharya as a priest
• Saheb Chatterjee as Mukti Debi's son, Anirban
• Manali Dey as Jhuma
• Badshah Moitra as police inspector Ritam, Anirban's friend
• Kharaj Mukherjee as promoter Shakun Bapi
• Biswanath Basu in a special appearance in " Mashima Hitler " song^[4]
• Santu Mukhopadhyay as Sajal Da
• and Om Sahani in a special appearance in " Rongoboti " song^[5]
• Aditi Munshi in a special appearance in “ Srikrishno Kirton ”^[6]

Marketing and release[]

The First Flash-mob in Bengal was conducted at 12 different locations all over Kolkata for the song Rongoboti. The Digital reach of the Flash-mobs was more than 2 million and the ground reach was around 1000, per flash mob. The first official teaser of the film was unveiled by Windows Production on 2 July 2019. Gotro completed 100+ days at the box office with a massive collection of 5 crores. It enjoyed full-houses for almost all its shows across Bengal, including the multiplexes and single-screen theatres.^[7][8]

Soundtrack[]

The soundtrack is composed by Anindya Chatterjee. The song, Rongaoboti, is inspired by the famous Odia song by the same name. It received enormous appreciation from the audience. The music album is one of the best in the last five years in terms of song reach, music album and awards. Rongoboti alone has a reach of 160+ million views on YouTube.^[9][10]

Reel vs Real[]

After the movie's release, a real-life incident came into light. Smritilata Debi and Shamim had the same story to share as that of Mukti Devi and Tareq Ali. Shamim had also changed his name to Sameer in order to stay at Smritilata Debi's house as a tenant in 2012. Shamim and Smritilata Debi started sharing the bond of a grandmother and grandson from that of a tenant and a land-lady, just the way Mukti Debi and Tareq Ali transformed themselves into a mother and a son. Much like what was shown in the movie, in real life too, Smritilata Debi had given strict instructions about taking a bath, put restrictions on eating non-veg food in the house and made sure, Shamim did not wear shoes near the place of worship. However, Shamim says that now it is Smritilata Debi who cooks chicken and other non-veg food for him and in the month of Ramadan, it is she who wakes him up at the middle of the night and prepares his sehri and then, iftari later in the day. There is just a wall between them when they pray to their respective Gods and that has never bothered either of them. Thakuma (as Shamim calls Smritilata Debi), says that there is nothing to be bothered about the two of them having different religious faiths and praying to different gods in the same house as both of them are remembering their gods and offering him their prayers. Shamim now takes care of his ‘Thakuma’ just the way Tareq took care of his ��Ma’ in the movie and Thakuma also helped Shamim with one of his B.Ed classes, just the way Mukti Debi started teaching Tareq. There was even a local land shark who tried to buy off thakuma's roof and Shamim's presence removed such possible threats. Both the women were questioned how can they allow a Muslim boy to be a part of their Hindu Festivities or their day-to-day rituals and they made it very clear that they are not supporters of such baseless discriminations and are true followers of humanity and kindness.

Smritilata Debi and Shamim at the 100 days celebration of Gotro

References[]

External links[]

• Gotro at IMDb