After more than a year, audiences return to theatres to watch Bengali films in festive season

Several Bengali films released during the Durga Puja festival did brisk business, industry sources said.

They said that while Golondaaj, starring Dev was still registering houseful shows, Jeet-starrer Bazi, Bony having Koel Mallick and Parambrata Chatterjee in lead roles, FIR of Ankush and Shororipu Two Jotugriho featuring Saswata Chatterjee also did well during the period of October 10 to 20.

A spokesperson of the producers of Golondaaj told PTI on Friday "... with 50 per cent occupancy in theatres, Golondaaj becomes the first film in Eastern India to earn around Rs 3 crore at the box office till Thursday - Laxmi puja and the day after."

SPECIAL CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE ONLY ON DH

Majority of cinema theatres and chains of Kolkata have witnessed back to back houseful shows consecutively for the first 4-5 days, she claimed.

Satadeep Saha, of distributors SSR Cinemas and owner of local Ajanta multiplex in the city said, Golondaaj, Baazi, Bony "all did very good business in theatres and while Golondaaj obviously fetched much higher box office returns due to its mount and hype surrounding the film registering back to back housefuls, Baazi was also a hit among the cinegoers."

Saha claimed the audience turnout was three times higher than last year and appealed to the state government and Centre for allowing 100 per cent occupancy at theatres.

While neither Saha nor producers of the two films were willing to quote any figure, a trade analyst said Bony did around one fourth of the business of Golondaaj.

Baazi did around Rs 35-40 lakh collection, the analyst said, adding that FIR and Shororipu Two had decent one week run in the theatres released, did around 10 per cent of the business of Golondaaj.

Dev told PTI, "I am glad that people are back to the theatres for celebrating cinema. In this pandemic situation for last two years it was very difficult to bring people back to cinema halls and we are very happy as a team that we are able to bring back the audience to the theatres with back to back houseful shows, cheers and whistles.

"I hope that this continues for other films also, so that the pre-pandemic era of watching films makes its way back again.”

Check out DH's latest videos: