On Uttam Kumar’s 95th birth anniversary Filmmaker Srijit Mukherji shared the official poster of his upcoming movie titled ‘Oti Uttam’ on Friday, which will feature late cinema legend Uttam Kumar through his old footage from various movies.
The colourful vintage-looking poster, featuring the matinee idol and the cast of the film, including Kumar’s grandson Gourab Chatterjee, Anindya Sengupta and Roshni Bhattacharya, harks back to the golden age of Bengali cinema.
The National-award-winning director took to social media to throw light on the research and effort he has put into his dream project.
While announcing the film, the director stated that instead of casting a contemporary actor as Kumar, he wanted to bring back the “Mahanayak” on screen with the help of the latest technologies. The caption of his poster launch post also states that apart from watching Kumar’s 62 films over four years, and rewriting the script many times, the director also had a tough time in getting hold of the rights to the films and he also had to attend long sessions with the VFX experts, sound designers and cinematographers.
In the poster, Sengupta and Chatterjee can be seen in period attire while Bhattacharya seems to be playing a character from the contemporary era.
Mukherji commenced his career with ‘Autograph (2010)’, which pays tribute to Satyajit Ray and Uttam Kumar. Though plot details are not yet known, industry sources said the film revolves around a film researcher working on a project on Uttam Kumar where the icon is brought in planchette.
Fondly remembered as ‘Mahanayak’ by his fans, Kumar was the first recipient of the National Film Award for Best Actor in 1967 for his performances in ‘Chiriakhana’, directed by Satyajit Ray, and ‘Antony Firingi’.
Legendary actor Uttam Kumar died on July 24, 1980 at the age of 54. —PTI
