Mumbai, Aug 30 (IANS) Actress-producer Pallavi Joshi, has spoken up about how mid-way during the pre-production the team of her upcoming film ‘The Bengal Files’ was hit with a tragedy.

The actress-producer spoke with IANS at the residence during the promotions of the film, and shared that the production designer, Rajat Poddar, who came forward with the extensive plan of the sets of the film, had passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest. She said that it was a major blow to the film.

Talking about the same, she told IANS, “We had signed Rajat Poddar as our production designer. So, in this very office, he had made a complete miniature of the set and it was a huge miniature, and was a beautifully designed set. He showed us the clock tower of Noakhali. He showed us the writer’s building and we were very happy. We were making changes. Everything was done and he had to go to London to shoot for, I think it was ‘Housefull’, which was released recently. And he suffered a massive cardiac arrest and he died. And for us, it was such a big jolt because we had started the construction of the set and Rajat was gone. So, we really didn’t know what to do at that point”.

‘The Bengal Files’, which is based on the Direct Action Day, which took place on August 16, 1946. It presents the events of one of the darkest chapters of India, when people were brutally killed following riots in Kolkata. The Direct Action Day riots sparked off several riots between Muslims and Hindus/Sikhs in Noakhali, Bihar, and Punjab.

But Rajat’s team came forward, their associate production designer, Pradeep Banerjee, who was also the art director on the film asked them not to hire another production designer because it was Rajat’s dream project.

She further mentioned, “Rajat came from West Bengal. So, he spoke Bengali very fluently. And this was going to be his 100th film. And it was like a very special project for him. So, Pradeep came to us and said that, ‘We would like to complete the project and we’ll give it our best to make Rajat’s vision come alive. So, there was absolutely no need for us to hire anyone else. And the team did such a wonderful job. I mean, at no point do you realize that this is not an actual location”.

“The properties were done so beautifully. But yes, everything came with a cost. And also, the film which we could have probably started and finished sooner, we had to prolong it over a period of four months because as one set was done, it had to be taken down and dismantled and the other one had to be erected. So, we had to keep shooting for a period of four months. So, of course, the land that we had hired, all the costs kept rising”, she added.

Presented by Tej Narayan Agarwal & I Am Buddha, The film is a worldwide release by Zee Studios, and will arrive in theatres on September 5, 2025.

–IANS

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