I wish my Marichjhapi film becomes controversial: Bauddhayan

Director

Bauddhayan Mukherji

is a busy man. He is currently writing his script for his film that is based on the controversial Marichjhapi incident that shook the whole of

Bengal

in the 70s.

On being asked why he wanted to make a film on this subject, Bauddhayan said, “It was long overdue. I have been to wanting to make a film on Marichjhapi for years now. It was the need to awaken the sleeping ghost of Marichjhapi, to bring the incident to light and make the world aware of such atrocities.”

However, writing the script for such a subject is not an easy task at all. After all, it will have to focus on the forcible eviction of around 1,000 refugees who occupied legally protected reserve forest land on Marichjhapi island in Sundarban by the then government in 1979, and the subsequent death of thousands by police gunfire, starvation, and disease. Speaking about the challenges of writing this script, the director said, “Marichjhapi lives as oral history documents in our lives. People have written books based on survivors’ anecdotes, made documentaries, done PhDs. But their approaches vary a lot from a filmmaker’s approach. I need to know Marichjhapi at a macro and micro level. Knowing micro details of Marichjhapi as a settlement and incorporating them as part of a screenplay has been the toughest because there is nothing we can fall back on. Hence we are meeting survivors and asking specific questions.”

Isn’t he afraid that the film will become controversial? “I wish it becomes controversial. That way, it will reach more people and they will be aware of this forgotten massacre called Marichjhapi,” he concluded.