Shyama

Shyama

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Synopsis

Genre: Musical | Drama

Shyama, a court dancer, falls in love with a foreign merchant who is falsely imprisoned and faces execution ... unless Shyama accepts an admirer's offer to take the merchant's place.

Perhaps best described as a cross between opera and ballet, this classic Bengali romantic tragedy was written in 1939 by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Shyama was Tagore's last major work for the stage and illustrates the unique combination of song, dance, colour and movement of the dance style he created. The ensemble cast of this authentic, colourful, feature film version features leading dancers, singers and musicians from Tagore’s home town of Santiniketan, India.

Based on a Buddhist legend, Shyama reflects Tagore's artistic and philosophical reaction to both the turbulence of pre-Independence India and Hitler’s persecution of Jews in Germany. Tagore's subtle message is no less appropriate today, when the lives of innocent people continue to be wrecked or cut short by political violence and foreigners continue to be convenient scapegoats.

Shyama and Tagore are held by many of the 230 million Bengali-speakers around the world in the same light as, for example, Romeo & Juliet and Shakespeare in the English-speaking world. Many of the songs are also popular favourites in their own right. The various language versions of the film so far include the first published translations of Shyama into English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Hungarian and Portuguese.

Latest Updates

  • Shyama gets warm welcome at the Kolkata Film Festival

    Published on: November 17, 2009

    Shyama, Obhi Chatterjee’s widescreen feature film version of Rabindranath Tagore’s classic Bengali dance drama, had its Asian première at the Kolkata Film Festival. Produced by UK-based Inner Eye, the film was conceived as an authentic reference work. Through subtitles and the film medium, it will raise global awareness of Tagore and the Tagore dance form (Rabindra nritya).

    The film features leading dancers, singers and musicians from Santiniketan. Kaberi Chatterjee dances the title role of Shyama, whose songs are performed by Manini Mukhopadhyay Bagchi. TS Vasunni dances the role of Bojroshen, sung by Jayanta Chatterjee. The production design and costumes are based on Kaberi’s research. So far, Shyama is available in Bengali, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese & Spanish.

    “We were thrilled to be invited to present Shyama at the Kolkata Film Festival”, said Obhi. “It was a great surprise to find that some of the audience were so absorbed by the film that they were singing along at Wednesday’s screening.” 70 years after Tagore created it, Shyama will use the latest digital distribution techniques to help this classic work cross linguistic boundaries as he had intended.

    Shyama will be screened at 6.30pm on December 10 at the Satyajit Ray Auditorium of the Rabindranath Tagore Centre, ICCR, Kolkata, as part of a Tagore Festival called Tagore Beyond Frontiers, which will be inaugurated by the Governor on December 4. Kaberi’s book Tagore dance, which uses production stills from Shyama to illustrate different aspects of this unique, semi-classical dance form, will be published shortly.

    Notes to editors

    1. Film website: www.shyamathemovie.com includes the first episodes of the 10-part Shyama podcast series introduced by Obhi & Kaberi Chatterjee. Web search term: ‘Shyama podcast’. Production stills can be downloaded from www.innereye.eu/shyama/press/Shyama_production_stills.zip .
    2. The English translation of Shyama by Jayanta, Obhi & Kaberi Chatterjee is published by Inner Eye. ISBN: 1440402043. The Shyama soundtrack album is available from online digital music stores.
    3. Shyama is available on DVD and video-on-demand from amazon.com in the US. It will shortly be released on various global online platforms, such as indieflix.com. With the help of the Java-based video technology of Forbidden Technologies plc, Shyama will also be available free online.
    4. Rabindranath Tagore Centre website: www.tagorecentreiccr.org .

    Contacts:
    Obhi Chatterjee - M: (+91) 94758 48651 until 22 November
    Kaberi Chatterjee - M: (+91) 99336 00358 until 28 November; T: +44 20 8144 9690 from 29 November

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  • Redefining Tagore

    Published on: November 10, 2009

    Indian Express feature by Piyasree Dasgupta

    Tagore’s Shyama travels to the big screen with subtitles available in eight languages

    Long before, ‘cinema’ maintained a discernible distance from the broader ambit of ‘movies’, and ‘world cinema’ enthusiasts in the city raised a toast to the convoluted, transgressive workings of human emotions, Tagore wrote Shyama. The 1939 classic went on to become one of his most celebrated dance dramas which explored how obsession, pride and spite creep into the rosy bubble of love. Its context might be dated, but Tagore’s work holds an unabashed mirror to the grimy underbelly of the world’s most celebrated emotion. And London-based Obhi Chatterjee did the just the right thing in filming Shyama, a work that will be screened in the 15th Kolkata Film Festival ...

    Read More »

     

  • Shyama screens at Kolkata International Film Festival

    Published on: November 7, 2009

    Shyama will have its Asian première at the Kolkata International Film Festival at the Nandan II cinema at 15:15 on Wednesday, 11 November. Director Obhi Chatterjee, Producer/star Kaberi Chatterjee and Executive Producer/singer Jayanta Chatterjee fly in to Kolkata that morning for the festival.

    Commenting on the film's selection, Kaberi Chatterjee said: "We are thrilled to have been invited by the Kolkata International Film Festival to present Shyama. We hope that the Festival audience will like the film as much as Western audiences have so far."

    Read More »

     

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