Year-ender: Tollywood’s biggest Controversies of 2022

With 2022 coming to an end, Tollywood has witnessed more controversies than hits this year. If the Bengali industry was ever out of a plot, except a few exceptions, it might lead to a great movie with all those drama that brewed around Tollywood this year. Let’s get you all up to speed with all the controversies that 2022 had in store for our beloved industry.

Year Ender 2022: Remembering celebs whose demise left a huge void

Film-maker Anik Dutta's much-hyped latest venture 'Aparajito', which is a tribute to auteur Satyajit Ray on his 101st anniversary, found no slot in May earlier this year in state-run auditoriums of Nandan and Cinema Centenary Building, leaving its makers baffled. 'Aparajito' traces Ray's journey during the making of classic 'Pather Panchali'. Dutta, a known critic of the Mamata Banerjee-led government, had earlier, too, run into trouble when his anti-establishment satire 'Bhobisyoter Bhoot' was pulled off cinema halls in February 2019, just days after its release. However, later the film became one of the huge hits in Bengali cinema in 2022.

Bengali film 'Projapati' starring yesteryear superstar turned BJP leader Mithun Chakraborty and Tollywood hero turned Trinamool Congress MP Dev not finding a slot at West Bengal governemt-run film complex Nandan in the Christmas week triggered a controversy. The opposition BJP alleged the film was not selected in Nandan as it features Mithun Chakraborty in a pivotal role. Dev who is co-producing the film, however, steered clear of controversy saying the film is already being seen on several single screens and multiplexes across the state and registering "very good response".

Veteran actor Debashree Roy slammed the 28^th Kolkata International film Festival organizers for disrespecting her and also insisted that’s why she didn’t visit this year’s KIFF. Incidentally, even though several big names from Bollywood were seen at the opening ceremony Bengal’s own child Mithun Chakraborty didn’t get any invitation. Speculation was rife that since the Bollywood icon now represents the opposition party that’s why the Bengal government run film festival didn’t invite Mithun. Debashree said that at the end of the day they are all artists and if artists don’t get respect they will never accept any invitation and that’s why she stayed away from KIFF.

Just like in Bollywood, several Bengali films including ‘Bismillah’, ‘Dharmajuddha’, ‘Lokkhi chhele’ to name a few had to deal with the boycott trend ahead of their theatre releases. While the real cine buffs didn’t care about the so-much hyped boycott trend there were others who took it seriously and turned social media into a public scrutiny platform.

Playing Feluda has been a long-cherished dream of his that has finally happened with Sandip Ray’s Hatyapuri. Indraneil Sengupta, who is determined to prove naysayers wrong, is excited to morph into Bengal’s most-loved super sleuth. However, when Sandip Ray announced Indraneil will be his next Feluda many had their doubts. Fans were keen to see Tota Roy Choudhury as the man for the big screen outing, especially after winning hearts for playing Feluda in Srijit Mukherji’s web series. In fact, casting Abhijit Guha as Jatayu also irked many fans.

Ever since ‘Mirza’ was announced it created a frenzy among cine buffs who loves action entertainers. With this film, actor Ankush was supposed to debut as a producer. The film was initially bankrolled by his newly opened house in collaboration with another production house based in Kolkata. However, after creating a huge frenzy, the makers parted ways because of internal discords. ‘Mirza’ was supposed to release during Eid 2023 and fans were eagerly waiting for the action entertainer. But, the film has now been pushed back. Meanwhile, Ankush has cleared all the doubts and has assured fans that ‘Mirza will be made and the shooting will start in 2023.

Actor Trina Saha was in furious mood after she was trolled for sharing the stage with Bollywood’s big names at the KIFF opening ceremony. Through a social media post she took a cheeky dig at both journalists and a few from the industry who mocked her. The criticism irked her and the actress says had to respond to this baseless criticism as it seemed "humiliating" for her. It all started when Trina shared her excitement after meeting Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan at the KIFF opening ceremony at Netaji Indoor Stadium. She dropped a candid picture with SRK on her Instagram handle and wrote, "No Caption Needed Thank u Thank u Thank u @arindamsil for the capture."mAfter she dropped the picture Trina was allegedly trolled by a section of media. Responding to the criticism, Trina took to her social media handle to drop message for those who were criticizing her, "Can movie actors/actresses or television actors/actresses be divided into any category??? Everyone's job is to give entertainment to people!!! Everyone is established in their own place. But why is television always belittled from movies? There is no room for conflict in movies or television. 'SRK' wouldn't have done 'Circus' (the television soap) then!! So my dear journalist/journalists- criticism does not require competence. It takes competence to be criticized," her post read.