This Article is From Oct 20, 2015

After the Success of Talvar, Onir Says Its Good Time to Release Chauranga

After the Success of Talvar, Onir Says Its Good Time to Release Chauranga

This image was posted on Twitter by Onir .

New Delhi: With films on complex subjects getting accepted by audiences, filmmaker Onir hopes that his upcoming production Chauranga, which revolves around class oppression in rural India, will benefit from the present scenario.

Onir said that the success of films like Masaan, Talvar and Killa is a very positive sign.

"There is a great amount of acceptance in the audiences now. Films like Talvar, Killa and Masaan have done well despite not being mainstream. They have received great response. I think it is a very good time to release a film like Chauranga because the audience is opening to stories like these," Onir told PTI.

Chauranga has been produced by Sanjay Suri, Onir and Mohan T Mulani. It stars Sanjay, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Arpita Pal Chatterjee, Soham Maitra, Riddhi Sen, Dhritiman Chatterjee and is scheduled to release on January 8, 2016. The movie has been successful at film festivals with wins at IFFLA 2015 and MAMI last year. For Onir, festival glory is great but the real satisfaction is to see the film reach its intended audience.

"It is a special project for Sanjay and me. It has been a very satisfying journey, the making of the film and the festival tours. And then finally we are able to bring it to the audience. The whole point of making a movie is to take it to the audience," he added.

Chauranga has been written and directed by Bikas Ranjan Mishra, whom Onir met at the Locarno script lab where both of them partcipated with their respective films.

Onir said that the untold story of rural India is what attracted him to Bikas' work and it was then that he decided to produce it.

"His script was beautiful and engrossing. It's about the world I knew little of and wanted to know more. It is set in rural India. I am a very urban person, so it was a new tale for me. We don't realise that in rural India, people are different from us. It is a whole different world out there, which one needs to understand," said Onir.

The film also marks Onir's first production, which he has not directed.

"It was a new experience for me. It is with a debutante director. I had to stick to Bikas' vision," he added.

Onir has not directed a film since his 2011 film I Am. However, he will soon direct Shab, which is expected next year after the release of Chauranga. The filmmaker said that he wanted Shab to be his debut film but things could not work out and he instead directed My Brother Nikhil. (Also Read: Shab Will Show You a Different Side of Delhi: Onir)

However, he is happy that the film which has been shot across four seasons in Delhi, is releasing since he was able to give it the correct treatment.

"I wrote Shab as my first film. I am happy that it is releasing now. The script has undergone some changes. It is a more complex story now. I have grown as a filmmaker and the film has turned out exactly the way I wanted it to," said Onir.

Shab stars Raveena Tandon, Sanjay Suri, Gaurav Nanda and Arpita Pal.

Apart from Chauranga and Shab, Onir will also direct Veda, which is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
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