Soumitra, Naseeruddin in trilingual film on intolerance

Two powerhouse performers, who had generations hooked to the big screen, will soon be seen in one film. In a first, thespian Soumitra Chatterjee and Bollywood film and stage actor Naseeruddin Shah are set to come together for Saibal Mitra’s Debotaar Grash, an adaptation of the novel, Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee.
The director said he had been working on the script for around a year and a half and it also reflects his thoughts on communalism, intolerance and the religious chaos in the society.After reading the play, he also saw the 1960 Hollywood film by the same name, which was directed by Stanley Kremmer and thought of scripting a film on it. He wanted to cast Naseeruddin and got in touch with him via WhatsApp.
“Contemporising the play in the Indian context was a big challenge and I got thinking about it for long. Finally, I managed to get the right cast and the film is in the final stages of pre-production,” said the director.

The story is set in Hillolganj, a township, where majority of the inhabitants belong to the Adivasi community and are Christians by religion. There, Kunal Joseph, a science professor, denies teaching The Genesis of the Bible before science. It was an unwritten rule of the college to teach The Genesis
before Darwin's Theory of Evolution, which Kunal refused by reasoning that Bible was beyond his jurisdiction. This act draws ire from the management and Kunal gets suspended. Communal tension starts growing in the area as Kunal is a Hindu and is put behind bars for offending the Christians. Once media starts highlighting Kunal’s misery, the nation’s attention shifts to Hillolganj. Kunal’s trial begins in the Court of Hillolganj and two eminent lawyers — Reverend Basant Kumar Chatterjee and Anthon D’Souza — appear in court to contest in favour and against him. “While Soumitrada plays Basant Kumar, Naseeruddin Shah will be seen as Anthon. They are the two pillars of the film,” said the director.

Naseeruddin was first seen in the Bengali film, Protidan, by Prabhat Roy and his last was Judhajit Sarkar’s Khasi Katha — A Goat Saga. No alien to Kolkata, where he not only staged plays, but also shot for films like Sunglass (2013) and Michael (2011), Naseeruddin delivered the Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture in 2017, where he regretted not have acted in any Ray movie. Also, between Naseeruddin and Soumitra, it’s a mutual admiration club. Soumitra, all praise for Naseeruddin, once mentioned that his idol in Hindi cinema was Balraj Sahni, while Naseeruddin reportedly said he had two matinee idols — Balraj Sahni and Soumitra Chatterjee. Kaushik Sen will be seen as a Delhi-based journalist in the film, which is likely to roll in summer this year. “It’s a trilingual film where the characters will speak Bengali, Hindi, English, apart from Adivasi languages,” added Saibal.