Shyama

Shyama screens at Kolkata International Film Festival

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."

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Shyama team mourns passing of lead musician

Debasis Hazra, one of the two musical arrangers of Shyama, passed away this morning after suffering a brain haemorrhage. Known to Shyama's production team as 'Bachchuda', he was one of the key people without whose support and encouragement the film would not have been made. His amazing percussion sets the pace of the dancing and atmosphere throughout Shyama's soundtrack.

Producer/star Kaberi Chatterjee, who is currently in Santiniketan, said "Bachchuda has been a personal friend for many years and had been teaching percussion at the Sangeet Bhavan for just over 30 years since he was 18. He accompanied all the major Tagore dance drama productions of Visva-Bharati University I performed in both here and internationally. I and many others in Santiniketan today cannot imagine a Tagore dance drama without him. "

Director Obhi Chatterjee (pictured below with Debasis Hazra in Santiniketan earlier this year) said "Shyama gave me a unique opportunity to work closely with Bachchuda. It was easy to recognise that his sense of pace, timing and using percussion to create atmosphere was brilliantly suited to Tagore's music and drama. Apart from his musical skill, though, his warmth, humour, dedication and honesty were remarkable. It was an honour to have had the opportunity to get to know him and to learn from him but I am sad that he was taken from us at such an early age."

The Shyama production team have decided to add a short tribute to Bachchuda as a postscript in the final version of Shyama, which was due to have been released this week.

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Celebrating Tagore in Stratford with a screening of Shyama

Shyama, Obhi Chatterjee’s feature film version of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s classic Bengali dance musical, will be part of the Stratford Poetry Festival’s tribute to the Indian poet, philosopher, artist and composer on his birth anniversary. The film will be introduced by a live programme featuring Kaberi, Jayanta and Obhi Chatterjee.

Through poetry, songs and dance, the live programme narrated by Obhi Chatterjee will explore Tagore’s creative journey from poetry to dance. Shyama tells the story of a court dancer who falls in love with a foreign merchant, who is falsely imprisoned and faces execution ... unless Shyama accepts her admirer’s offer to take the merchant’s place. Written in 1939, Shyama was Tagore’s last major work for the stage. Perhaps best described as a cross between opera and ballet, it reflects his artistic and philosophical reaction to both the turbulence of pre-Independence India and Hitler’s persecution of Jews in Germany.

The film features leading dancers, singers and musicians from Tagore’s home town of Santiniketan. Kaberi Chatterjee dances the title role of Shyama, the court dancer, whose songs are performed by Manini Mukhopadhyay Bagchi. TS Vasunni dances the role of Bojroshen, the foreign merchant, whose songs are performed by Jayanta Chatterjee.

Announcing the event, the Director of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Dr Diana Owen, said: "We are delighted to be able to present this unique work as part of our 2009 Poetry Festival and hope that people will join us on Saturday to celebrate Tagore's Birthday here at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Shyama is a very special tribute of poetry and performance which I hope will introduce more people to the work of Tagore, and also highlight the influence that Shakespeare still holds for artists across the globe."

Kaberi Chatterjee added: “We are very pleased to have been invited to present Shyama at the Stratford Poetry Festival. Shyama and Tagore are held by many of the 230 million Bengali-speakers around the world in the same light as, for example, Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare in the English-speaking world.”

The celebration will be held at 2pm on Saturday, 9 May at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon. There will be a small ceremony after the film with more of Tagore’s songs at the bust of Tagore in the garden of Shakespeare’s Birthplace.

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