Now Satyajit Ray's Professor Shonku to be adopted for big screen

Kolkata: Satyajit Ray’s famous science-fiction character Professor Shonku will now be adopted for big screen with Dhritiman Chatterjee essaying the role of the world famous fictional scientist visiting Brazil on some expedition.

Ray’s son Sandip, who has already made a number of popular films on the versatile writer-director-illustrator father’s fictional sleuth Feluda, told a press meet here last evening, “We will take up Nakur Babu O El Dorado one of the most gripping tales of Professor Shonku series as the first film which will be titled “Professor Shonku o El Dorado”.

“It will definitely be a film in science fiction genre having both Bengali and English dialogues depending on the nationality of characters and the places of occurrence as the shoots will take place in Kolkata and elsewhere in India and also in Brazil. Also Professor Shonku, an internationally recognised scientist, will certainly converse in English or other languages like Portuguese with his friends abroad and not in Bengali or Hindi,” Sandip Ray commented.

“We will ensure every detail is kept, including the way Professor Shonku’s house is etched out in the fictional work of father,” he said adding there will be lots of special effects.

“Apart from Shonku and his private assistant Prahlad, there are many other characters of British, German, Brazilian nationalities in the work. We have to think what will be their language. We know the Brazilian film industry is big and would take actors from there when we visit the country,” he said.

The film will have lots of special effect but how the story will be told, either in first person by Shonku’s assistant Prahlad or in simple narrative form will be revealed later, he said to a question adding if the shooting in India and Brazil was over by July-August 2018, they were aiming for a December release in 2018.

Actor Dhritiman Chatterjee said, “Shonku is a character meant for an international audience, the audience who are based in Kolkata and also spread elsewhere in the world. We are certainly trying to give a global flavour to the film and its characters.”

Asked about the reason behind casting Dhritiman as Shonku, Sandip said, “He fits in well from every point of view. Shonku is not much tall, and we must remember an actor essaying Shonku has to be fluent in English.”

Sandip, who had kept the theme music in Feluda by retaining the signature tunes while reworking in contemporary mould, said “We are planning a track which will gel with the literary work.”