Bengal’s ‘Blue Whale’ swims to Cannes

KOLKATA: “Blue Whale” – the Bengali short film based on the infamous online suicide game – has taken a dip from the Bay of Bengal and swam straight across to the French Riviera. The 13-minute film directed by Anirban Guha and Avi Bandyopadhyay has been selected for the Cannes Short Film Corner that will be held between May 8 -19.
Eight other Bengali films have also been selected for the Cannes Short Film Corner.They are Souradeep Sen’s “Sesh Proshno”, Roopkatha Purakayastha’s “Bali”, Abhishek Mukherjee’s “Tej Bahadur”, Rahul Roye’s “Guests”, Sandy Saha’s “Swopne Dyakha Rajkonya”, Dane Dane Holroyd’s “Jaba”, Chandradeep Das’ “Ek Poshla Rupkatha” and Saurabh Chatterjee’s “Birpurush”.
However, this out-of-competition segment - for which a maker has to pay 85 Euros (approximately Rs 6,800) - is different from the festival’s prestigious Cinefondation section. The Cinefondation section selects 15 to 20 short and medium-length films each year from film schools all over the world. Since this section is meant only for film school students, “Blue Whale” won’t qualify here. But the makers are keeping their fingers crossed now and waiting for the list of the short films in official competition at Cannes to be announced in April.
Incidentally, this is the third time that Guha’s films have been screened in this segment which the Cannes Film Festival website describes as: “A meeting place for professionals from all over the world. Organised by the Festival de Cannes, the Short Film Corner is the essential rendezvous for film-makers. Since 2004, short film producers and directors have chosen the Short Film Corner as the place to present their films, make meetings reality and take decisive steps for their future careers. The Short Film Corner proposes films from all over the world, most previously unseen, as well as the short films selected in the Official Competition, the Cinefondation, the Director’s Fortnight and the Critic’s Week”.
The “Blue Whale” directors said the numerous incidents of deaths of teenagers in Kolkata and other parts of India because of this game prompted them to hunt for a story that could be adapted for their short film. Tanmay Mukherjee’s short story titled “Debu ar Blue Whale Curator” came handy and the director-duo adapted it for their short film.
The storyline of this Darshana Banik and Satrajit Sarkar starrer revolves around how a 19-year-old girl goes to meet the curator of this online game after painstakingly completing the first 49 tasks. This is her first meeting with the curator. Both excited and nervous, the girl is eager to get the instructions to complete the last lap to 50. “But what does the curator offer her as her final task? Does she have to cross the last line or cross over to meet the ultimate fall? The film deals with how depression affects teenagers,” Guha said, adding that the efforts will be successful if this film can impact the younger generation positively and help them overcome depression.
According to Guha, his earlier experience at the Short Film Corner has given him the much-needed exposure to global cinema. Guha had gone to Cannes in 2016 with his film ‘Elixir’ – which has recently been published as a novel by his wife Sinjini Sengupta. “Watching films across the world, interacting with filmmakers and distributors was extremely enriching. I got the exposure of how global short films are made,” said Guha though unsure about whether or not he will be personally making it to Cannes this year.