Crowdfunding campaign for film on Satyajit Ray's 'Feluda'

A documentary film chronicling the half-a-century-long legacy of Satyajit Ray's famous detective Feluda, has turned to crowdfunding to be able to be screened at the New York Film Festival.
Sagnik Chatterjee, who has directed the 111 minute-long film titled, "Feluda - 50 years of Ray's Detective" has started a campaign on Wishberry, an online crowdfunding portal, to raise an amount of Rs 15 lakhs for post-production.
"A lot of people have been able to earn their livelihoods because of the stories and films on Feluda. So when we ran out of funds to finish this film, it made sense for us to reach out to the people that Feluda has completed his 50 years' journey with," says Chatterjee.

The fictional Bengali detective is a celebrated character in and outside West Bengal for his qualities of "commitment to uphold social justice for the oppressed".
Feluda has found place in films, television, radio, comics and music over the last 50 years, since his first appearance in a Bengali children's magazine in 1965.
Chatterjee says his three-year-long project will be the "first Indian documentary that will pay tribute to a fictional detective character".

The director, who seeks to preserve the unparallelled legacy of Feluda with this film, will also explore Ray as "a writer and an illustrator".
"Satyajit Ray has never been truly explored as a writer and illustrator like he has as a filmmaker. We will be doing that in this film and that is exciting for me.

"Also, through this film, I will get to document everything that is out there about Feluda and make sure that this legacy is well preserved and not lost in the sands of time," he says.
While the production is set to be screened at the New York Film Festival in April this year, Chatterjee also reveals his plans to release it on a wider scale on Ray's birthday on May 2, next year.
"If all goes according to the plan, the film should be hitting theatres around May 2018. We're hoping to release on May 2, 2018 which is also Satyajit Ray's birthday, so it'll feel even more special," says Chatterjee.