Acclaimed Bengali actress Rituparna Sengupta and Director Ranjan Ghosh attending the India Festival Premiere of Ahaa Re at the Habitat Film Festival
New Delhi : A 2019 release still continuing to make a mark in the box office, Ranjan Ghosh’s Ahaa Re has just completed a resounding 75 days dream run in the Bengali box office. On top of that, Ahaa Re has struck a chord with film lovers and critics alike. The film is scheduled to have its India Festival Premiere at the Habitat Film Festival on May 22 at 3 pm. Famed Bengali actress Rituparna Sengupta, a favourite of Bengali film aficionados, who essays the lead role of a gifted Bengali home-delivery cook in Ahaa Re, is also attending the screening along with director Ranjan Ghosh.
Director Ranjan Ghosh spoke with us from Calcutta on a jubilant note, “To me, ‘Ahaa Re’ is an emotion and a five-year journey which tells you that if your intentions are honest and if your heart is in the right place, no matter what you want to say and the way you want to say it, things will eventually fall in place.” He had also recently travelled to Delhi for a special screening on World Shakespeare Day with his debut film Hrid Majharey inspired by ‘Othello, organized by the Habitat Film Club.
“Ahaa Re ticks all the right boxes when it comes to an unconventional premise. A rich Bangladeshi Muslim (Bangladeshi actor Arifin Shuvo), a middle-class Indian Hindu, and the medium of food, the fusion of Epaar Bangla and Opaar Bangla (East and West Bengal), to chart the course of their love story. There are a couple of delectable performances to savour as well. Rituparna Sengupta delivers with considerable restraint right through. As the old patriarch who bristles at being addressed as meshomoshai by strangers, who yearns to learn magic at this ripe old age, Paran Bandyopadhyay is brilliant!” says Film critic and avid film buff, Shantanu Ray Chaudhari, who has closely followed Ranjan Ghosh’s work.
The entry to the festival is free but registrations are mandatory from the festival website. Organizers have conveyed that all the Bengali feature films at the Festival see great participation year after year and that there is dedicated band of film lovers waiting to catch Ahaa Re at the Fest. Ranjan’s critically acclaimed second film Rongberonger Korhi was also screened to a full house at the 2018 edition of the Habitat Film Festival.