Kolkata: Legendary New Theatres studio, which gave Indian cinema its icons like Prithviraj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and Debaki Kumar Bose, is back to film production after a gap of 55 years.
Founded by Dadasaheb Phalke awardee B N Sircar in 1931, the famous studio had stopped film production after getting enmeshed in legal hassles ever since 'Bakul' was made way back in 1955.
Romita Bose Sircar has now taken over the mantle of carrying forward the rich legacy of his grandfather who passed away in 1980. "Even my father wanted to revive the banner and so I am very happy to be able to fulfil his dream," she said admitting that doing justice to the glorious history of 'New Theatres' would be a tough task for her.
"But the banner still enjoys unparallelled amount of respect among cinema lovers. We want to revive its good old days of making socially relevant and well-scripted films," New Theatre's executive producer Pinaki Chakraborty told PTI.
Under the initiative, their first film 'Ami Aadu' (I am 'Aadu'), a love story of a simple Hindu Brahmin girl and an ambitious Muslim boy in rural Bengal set against the backdrop of the Iraq war, was released today.
Having one more Bengali film in the pipeline, the producers plan to make at least one movie each year. "We just want to keep making movies for the common people. Our present focus is on rural Bengal where the bulk of Bengali cinema-goers exist," Chakraborty said.
A record number of 150 films, including Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and even Tamil, were made under the banner over a span of 25 years.
A bulk of the Bengali films produced by 'New Theatres' had Hindi or Urdu versions giving them a pan-India audience.
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