Two Bengali releases this Christmas?

Christmas is an important date in the Tollywood calendar and like every year, big releases have been lined up around this time. At least two films will be clashing at the box office on Christmas this year. These include Sandip Ray’s

Professor Shonku

O El Dorado and Leena Gangopadhyay and Saibal Banerjee’s Sanjhbati. Shonku O El Dorado is a science fiction drama film directed based on Satyajit Ray’s story — Nakur Babu O El Dorado. Dhritiman Chaterji will portray the main protagonist character of Professor Shonku, the look of which has been kept neatly under wraps.

The film was earlier expected to release on December 1. A big-budget film, it was shot in Bengal and Brazil. On the other hand, Sanjhbati is expected to see Dev in a completely different light. The actor plays a suburban young man who comes to the city and meets a young girl played by Paoli in unusual circumstances. Lily Chakraborty plays the main protagonist in the film and happens to be at the centre of the narrative. The film also stars Soumitra Chatterjee and actor couple Sohini Sengupta and Saptarshi Maulik. While the film will see Dev pairing up with Paoli, this is not the first time that the two are part of a film. Dev’s Puja release, Password, also stars Paoli in an important role. Directed by Kamaleswar Mukherjee, the film on cyber crime also stars Parambrata Chatterjee, Rukmini Maitra, Adrit Roy and others. Apart from the two Bengali films, another major Bollywood film is also slated to release on the same date.