‘Bandit Queen of Bengal’ Project Sets Fall Start (EXCLUSIVE)
Naman Ramachandran Indian filmmaker Subhrajit Mitra’s latest venture “Bandit Queen of Bengal” (aka “Devi Chowdhurani”) will start principal photography in the final quarter of the year. The film is based on Mitra’s own research into the the advent and invasion of the British East India Company in India, the battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764), the great Bengal famine of 1770, the Sannyasi and Fakir rebellion (1770-77) and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s 1884 Bengali-language novel “Devi Chowdhurani,” which features a female freedom fighter protagonist. The film will follow the journey of a villager who eventually becomes the first Indian woman freedom fighter. It will also tell the story of the Hindu monks who had no other option but to take up arms against their British colonial rulers to save the country and their people. It was the first armed revolution by the Indians, led by Bhavani Charan Pathak, against the British East India Company. The film will hew close to the novel’s plotline but some 80% of it will be closer to actual history.