Nagarkirtan

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Nagarkirtan
নগরকীর্তন
Nagarkirtan poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed byKaushik Ganguly
Written byKaushik Ganguly
Produced byAcropolis Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.
StarringRiddhi Sen
Ritwick Chakraborty
CinematographySirsha Ray
Edited bySubhajit Singha
Music byPrabuddha Banerjee
Production
company
Acropoliis Entertainment
Release date
  • 1 January 2017 (2017-01-01)
Running time
115 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageBengali

Nagarkirtan (নগরকীর্তন) is a 2017 Indian Bengali film written and directed by Kaushik Ganguly. The film stars Riddhi Sen as Parimal, a trans woman from rural Bengal, and Ritwick Chakraborty as Madhu, a flute player from the Kirtaniya town of Nabadwip.[1]

At the 65th National Film Awards the film won four Awards including, Special Jury Award (Feature Film) and National Film Award for Best Actor for Riddhi Sen.[2][3][4][5]

Plot[]

Unable to cope with the trauma of being ‘betrayed’ by her teacher Subhash-da (Indrasish Roy), Porimal, an intersex woman, runs away from home and joins a ghetto of intersex people as Puti and sings at traffic signals to earn money. There she falls in love with Madhu (Ritwick Chakraborty), a delivery boy with a Chinese restaurant who moonlights as a flautist in kirtans. Their love blossoms while they dream of raising money required for the sex reassigned surgery after meeting the first intersex person in India who has completed Doctor of Philosophy, Manabi Bandyopadhyay. But transphobic society does not support their dreams. Puti is arrested and commits suicide by hanging herself with her towel inside the lock up at a police station. Eventually, Madhu joins the same ghetto of eunuchs.

Cast[]

Scope[]

The film is a document that frames this experience of an invisible community, rarely portrayed in Indian mainstream cinema. The fabric of Ganguly's film moves beyond the binaries of a linear and complex narrative and instead brings forth a breathtaking ruthlessness that mirrors the hidden lives and traumas of the Transgender/ Hijra/ Intersex/ gender non-conforming communities.[6] The film embodies the visceral experience of these communities battling centuries of prejudice and taboo. The community's lived realities of being caught between questions of vice and virtue, desire and rejection sustains the film's body narrative – rather precariously – avoiding a moral position – yet examining the very contours that makes taking these positions complicated. In a society that largely considers trans bodies as dustbins to dump its traumas and miscarriages of justice, the film signals a language of change that can be used to build a narrative of resistance.

Controversy[]

In February 2019, Bengali writer Swapnamoy Chakraborty alleged that this film was plagiarised from his Ananda Puraskar winning novel titled Holde Golap[7] but latter he revised his views on the film and declared that Nagarkirtan is not a cinematic adaptation of Holde Golap.[8][9]

Awards[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Ritwick Chakraborty and Riddhi Sen to play main characters in controversial 'Nagarkirtan'". The Times of India. 29 March 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  2. ^ "65th National Film Awards for 2017 announced". Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. 13 April 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  3. ^ "Won't take National Award for granted, says Bhoomi actor Riddhi Sen". Hindustan Times. 17 April 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  4. ^ IANS (11 May 2018). "Riddhi Sen gave world beating performance in 'Nagarkirtan': Shekhar Kapur". Business Standard India. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  5. ^ "Importance of Being Earnest". The Indian Express. 9 May 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  6. ^ "Nagarkirtan selected in Indian Panorama section of the 49th International Film Festival of India". MediaInfoline. 9 November 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  7. ^ "Kaushik has plagiarised from my Holde Golap: Swapnamoy Chakraborty - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  8. ^ "I'm grateful that Swapnamoy has revised his view: Kaushik Ganguly - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  9. ^ "Nagarkirtan is not a cinematic adaptation of my novel: Swapnamoy Chakraborty - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  10. ^ "17th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 12 April 2013.

External links[]

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