Somudra Banerjee

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Explorations will embark on a research journey to locations in order to write a narrative feature film script, on the intersecting lives of a few fictional characters, set in the world of sand mining, around the riverbanks in Bengal’s Rarh region. Somudra Banerjee is the Coordinator for this project. 

Somudra Banerjee is a filmmaker and screenwriter based between Mumbai and Durgapur. After years of experience as a journalist and writer, he transitioned into filmmaking. Somudra holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Film Direction and Screenwriting from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and has a Master's in English Literature from Fergusson College, University of Pune. In 2023, Somudra completed his thesis film, Towards an Exegesis on Dying Inayat Khan. His short film, Abhyantar, was screened at the twentieth OneTake Film Festival in Zagreb, Croatia. He also contributed inter-titles for the award-winning film A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021). Given his experience, Somudra Banerjee is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

This project involves embarking on a research journey to locations, and exploratory writing of a narrative feature film script, to discover the history, cultures and contradictions of the land, on the riverbanks in Rarh region in West Bengal. The project blends the perspectives of the Project Coordinator, both as a cultural insider and outsider. The writing will unfold through the intersecting lives of a few fictional characters. The plotline is set in an industrial town, marked by hope and despair, including a recent law graduate, entangled in the world of illegal sand mining, who is in love with a widowed primary school teacher, other a businessman who rose from poverty through illegal mining, who clashes with a local political leader over land disputes whose daughter is romantically involved with a factory worker aspiring to join the army. The artistic exploration is narratological, in playing around with film script writing to sketch out the intersecting lives of these characters.  

The Project Coordinator will draw on his journalistic background, to document the untold history of overlooked districts in Rarh region and their residents, driven by a sense of urgency before socio-political changes erase their heritage. While the Project Coordinator has developed initial character sketches and a rough premise, it remains open to new discoveries. To enrich his understanding about the place, he plans to refer to research works by noted anthropologists such as Benoy Ghosh and Ashutosh Bhattacharya, along with various art and history books, gazettes, archival documents, and local media. The project will merge fiction and ethnography, involving extensive travel for interviews using a sound recorder, and capturing photographs with an analogue camera to develop a unique visual style. 

The outcome of the project will be a research travel and an experimental feature film script, sound recordings, and photographs. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the audio-visual documentation of the artistic process, a draft of the film script, and photographs.  

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to unearth the ground realities of a relatively underrepresented industrial suburban area in India, through artistic research methods that will lead to an experimental film script writing, featuring the intersecting lives of some fictional characters, as a narratological artistic exercise based on research in the archives and fieldwork. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm by convening an online gathering of artists coordinating Explorations projects. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.