PODCAST |Matt Micucci interviews Priyankar Patra, producer of the film Once Upon a Time in Calcutta.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

A conversation with Priyankar Patra, producer of Once Upon a Time in Calcutta, presented in the Orizzonti section of the 78th Venice Film Festival. The film is directed by Aditya Vikram Sengupta, who unfortunately was unable to make the festival due to COVID measures. In this interview, Patra talks about the film, which feels a little like a magnum opus and reveals Calcutta as a microcosm with its many colours and textures.

Once Upon a Time in Calcutta: After the loss of her daughter, Ela not only loses her identity as a mother, but also the only reason to be with her husband. When she is refused a home loan by the bank, her boss, owner of a massive Ponzi scheme, makes her an offer she struggles to accept. Ela reconnects with her stepbrother to reclaim her half of an old family theatre, but he refuses, blaming Ela for his own dark fate. In between all this, Ela’s childhood sweetheart resurfaces and gives her the warmth and hope for a new beginning. Just as Ela starts living the life she had dreamed for herself, she realises that she isn’t the only scavenger in the city brimming with hunger.