Ichhe director turns gaze on school admission maladies

Turning its focus on the cash-driven education system to elite schools in their upcoming flick Ramdhanu, blockbuster 'Ichhe' director Siboprasad-Nandita say films should always be derived from the lives of Aam Admi.
"The characters in a film actually represent the society. The subjects should have ruffled everyone's life at some point of time," Siboprosad Mukhopadhyay told PTI here.
Ramdhanu, the first Bengali film to have extensively dealt with the trauma faced by parents while admitting their wards in a school they want, was inspired by a literary work of famed Bengali writer Suchitra Bhattacharya but also reflected the director duo's being stricken by numerous accounts of guardians spending sleepless nights before the D day, Shiboprosad, who essayed the character of the hapless guardian of a four-year old in the film, said.

"With the number of good schools woefully short of demand, it becomes a real social issue," Shiboprosad said affirming all their films - from Ichhe on the implausible dreams of a mom to Alik Sukh on a doctor's predicament between ethics and material gains - were a journey in one sense.
The four-year old Akashneel Mitra, who faces the brunt of expectations from his humble background parents, is the inquisitive Gogol in film who never comprehends why a big school will mark all the differences in his life.
"Akashneel is the prototype of children of this age group showing the impishness and innocence of kids. The way he changed gears to give shots and then again unwinded he is an actgor in the making," Siboprosad said.

"He also remembered everybody's dialogues and that often landed us in trouble during shoots," the director of 'Accident' said.

Nandita (Roy), one of the two directors in the film, said, "As reflective of the society there are political references, it has to be as we are projecting the present day situation in Bengal. But it's not a political film."
Popular Actor Gargi Roy Chowdhury said, "It's a story of a child who has his own world and dreams are crushed by the ambitions of his parents. Akash was the precocious kid who never threw any tantrums."
Produced by Atanu Roy Chowdhury, Ramdhanu will be released in June.