Nil Nirjane

Nil Nirjane
DVD cover of movie Nil Nirjane
Directed by	Subrata Sen
Produced by	Rajesh Kumar Rungta
Written by	Subrata Sen
Starring	Moonmoon Sen, Raima Sen, June Malliah, Mou Sultana, Cactus, Rajatabha Datta
Music by	Debajyoti Mishra, Cactus
Cinematography	Sirsa Roy
Editing by	Rabiranjan Maitra
Distributed by	Piyali Films
Release date(s)	14 February 2003
Running time	109 min
Language	Bengali

Nil Nirjane (Bengali: নীল নির্জনে, Vacation Blues) is a Bengali Movie, released in 2003. This is the first movie in India which was shot on digital platform and is often credited as the first digital film in India. Directed by Subrata Sen, the movie featured Moonmoon Sen, Raima Sen, June Malliah, Mou Sultana and Rajatabha Datta. This is the only movie where Moonmoon Sen and Raima Sen, the real life mother and daughter of Indian cinema, play reel-life mother-daughter roles. The movie also saw the performance of Cactus, a Bengali rock band of Calcutta.^[1]

Plot

Nil Nirjane is set in a holiday resort where several people have come to spend their weekend. An interesting urban milieu far away from the humdrums of Kolkata is created in the film where we see an unwed mother with an adolescent daughter, a widower father with an adolescent daughter and an unwed couple. While relationships among unknown people start developing, the manager of the resort leads a slow life and gets entangled with a tribal girl. Suddenly Cactus band group arrives in the resort to shoot for their music video album and the serenity of the place is disturbed…

The film starts with a music video-like title, where the glimpses of the movie to follow is showcased. Immediately after that June along with his boy-friend Aman enters the holiday resort looking for a room to stay. In the resort we already find the single-mother, played by Moonmoon Sen with her daughter, played by real-life daughter Raima Sen. Mou, along with her father are also there to spend the weekend. A friendship develops between Mou and Raima, which gradually emerges as a lesbian entanglement. In the milieu, the characters start interacting with each other. Cactus, the rock band from Kolkata arrives for shooting a music video and the place is filled with songs, which emerge in the film in music-video format. Meanwhile, the June-Aman duo, sensing that relationship is not going to last long go for a suicide pact. People in the resort save them from dying and finally leaves for the city, leaving the resort in its original serenity.

Cast

• Moonmoon Sen ... Unwed mother
• Raima Sen ... Ria
• Ayan Mitra ... Aman
• June Malliah ... June
• Mou Sultana ... Mou
• Rajatabha Datta ... Brigadier
• Cactus ... Cactus Band group

Crew

• Directed Subrata Sen
• Story and Screenplay Subrata Sen
• Produced Rajesh Kumar Rungta
• Music Debajyoti Mishra , Cactus
• Cinematography Sirsa Roy
• Film Editing Rabiranjan Maitra
• Art Direction Indranil Ghosh

Promotion

Nil Nirjane is the first digital full-length feature film made in India. It has been shot entirely on digital video format and later converted into celluloid, with astounding results. This is also a film which has used sync sound after a long time in an Indian film. Says the director Subrata Sen, “This was an experiment for all us to try out the technology that has emerged as a boon for the independent filmmakers. With the final print in hand, we can now say that Nil Nirjane is a path breaking movie in Indian context.”

This was also the first Bengali film which got a nation-wide release in Bombay, Delhi, Pune and Bangalore simultaneously.

The film created lots of controversies with the purists terming the film "outrageous" for the lesbian and sex scenes. The controversy helped the movie in the box-office and ran for 50 days in the city halls.

Awards

• Best Experimental Film Award at Down Under Film Festival, Australia
• Uttamkumar Award for Best Music
• Best promising Actress to Raima Sen by BFJA.

References

1. ^ "Tolly takes off on high-tech trip". www.telegraphindia.com. 15 March 2003. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030315/asp/calcutta/story_1764519.asp. Retrieved 2009-02-23. 

External links

• Nil Nirjane at the Internet Movie Database
• http://subratasenfilmmaker.tripod.com/nilnirjane.html
• http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/40805736.cms
• Government bulletin on Indian Films