Mumbai, Oct 30 (IANS) State-owned public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is all set to present Tilottama, a Bengali feature film with story and direction by two-time National Award-winning filmmaker Ujjwal Chatterjee.
Inspired by the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata, on August 9, 2024, the film, which is produced by UCC Entertainments, transforms tragedy into testament – a mother’s cry that becomes the conscience of a nation.
“She lost her daughter. The world lost its shame. Her fight became our story.” These words form the heartbeat of Tilottama, a film that refuses to flinch.
“I have never believed that cinema exists only to entertain,” said Ujjwal Chatterjee.
He added: “For me, it is an act of witnessing — of standing still in front of truth when the world looks away. Tilottama is not a story I wanted to tell; it is a story that refused to let me sleep. When I saw what happened, I realised silence was no longer an option. A filmmaker cannot heal a wound, but he can make sure the wound is not forgotten.”
In Tilottama, the mother performs her pain through street theatre, jiban mukhi gaan, and mime turning art into ammunition. Each act is protest, each song is justice in rhythm. Her story mirrors that of Marianne Bachmeier, the German mother who shot her daughter’s rapist in a courtroom not imitation, but kinship, bound by fury and faith, as per a statement.
That philosophy breathes through every frame of Tilottama.
The mother in the film, Chatterjee explains: “is not a character — she is conscience incarnate. Through her pain, I wanted to show the transformation of despair into defiance. Her theatre, her songs, her gestures — each is rebellion.”
“In her tears I saw strength, and in her silence I heard thunder. I believe that when a woman rises against injustice, she does not just fight for herself; she restores the balance of the universe.”
For Chatterjee, this film is not a project but a pilgrimage.
“This film is my offering to every daughter who was silenced, every mother who still waits for justice,” he said.
“I do not make films to comfort; I make them to awaken. Tilottama is my prayer in celluloid — to remind us that empathy is the first step towards revolution, and remembrance is the only form of justice time cannot erase.”
“When silence becomes unbearable,” he says, “cinema must speak.”
Chatterjee’s frames are soaked in conscience. He does not film for beauty; he films for meaning. Rain-slick streets, a trembling diya, a mother’s cracked voice rising against injustice, these are his dialogues.
The mother’s tears are not the end of her story; they are the beginning of ours. “In her eyes — a storm. In his lens — the truth.”
–IANS
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