'Murderbaad' director Arnab Chatterjee sheds light on strange rule of Bengali artistes union

Mumbai, July 16 Writer-director-producer Arnab Chatterjee, who is awaiting the release of his upcoming film ‘Murderbaad’, has shared an anecdote from the film’s shoot. He shared how he encountered the logistical and financial difficulties faced during the film’s first schedule in West Bengal.

Arnab, who himself belongs to the Bengali community, revealed that the initial shoot in Bagdogra, Siliguri, became a deeply challenging experience due to complications involving local federation rules, redundant crew mandates, and last-minute harassment that impacted the entire unit, including industry veterans like cinematographer Binod Pradhan.

Talking about the same, he said, “It was the very first schedule of the film, and we were a unit of nearly 180 travelling from Mumbai to Bagdogra (Siliguri). The local federation in Kolkata has a self-declared rule of a certain number of technicians which a producer has to hire during shoot in Bengal. This rule becomes extremely unfair for producers with budget constraints, irrespective of Bengali or Hindi films”.

The director said that the whole Bangla film fraternity is suffering from this issue, since the business is already affected post-Covid.

He went on , “So you end up with your already signed-up crew from Mumbai, an additional crew from Kolkata whose services are redundant, and in addition to that, you have to bear travel, food and stay expenses for the whole schedule obviously. To go with this, there are several local line-production loopholes which are exercised to take advantage of producers. I realised this game on the second day of shoot, and took an overnight call to cut short the schedule to 4 days from 7, which didn’t sit right with the locals”.

Although a bold decision, it pushed the crew to its limits, as it resulted in a 25-hour long shift without breaks, just so he could finish the pending scenes and leave for Mumbai with the unit immediately. To add to the harassment, his entire unit was locked up in several hotels they were lodged in, for an instant demand to clear all payments, and there was no time given to tally expenses.

He further mentioned, “More than 100 tickets in waste, several crew members in distress, including my senior DOP, Binod Pradhan. As the director while on set, and producer after pack-up, it was very taxing to address all these production hassles on spot, and simultaneously direct the film keeping shoot quality and productivity in place. I’m glad we overcame this schedule and despite budgets shooting up to nearly double of what was on paper, we managed to resume shoot soon after returning from Bagdogra”.

“While making an independent film, if the very first schedule jolts you financially, you wire yourself differently for the remaining shoot as producer-director. All of this is part of the learning process, and in hindsight, I wish all of them well who have unintentionally taught me the harder way”, he added.

Despite the setback, ‘Murderbaad’ was able to resume filming shortly after the truncated Bagdogra schedule.

‘Murderbaad’ stars Sharib Hashmi, Nakul Sachdev, Kanikka, Manish Chaudhari, Saloni Batra, Amole Gupte, and Aanjjan Srivastav. The film is backed by Reliance Entertainment and produced under Chatterjee’s ACjee Entertainment banner with cinematography by Binod Pradhan and music by Rickie.

The film is set to release in cinemas on July 18, 2025.

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