Bengali films help reopen doors of single-screen hall

KOLKATA: Single-screen theatres have recently been closing down one after another, but this time encouraging footfall for Bengali films has made a single-screen hall in Bengal reopen after renovation.
Sree Durga Chhabighar — established in 1936 — had closed down last October. It reopened in Chandernagore on Republic Day with the screening of ‘Prajapoti’.Outside Bengal, 25 single screens across India reopened with the release of SRK’s ‘Pathaan’ on January 25.
Panchanan Nandy Chowdhury had opened Sree Durga Chhabighar in a year when 19 Bengali features and 13 short films were released. “My father, Anil Nandy, continued with this business. My brother Rathindranath and I used to run this cinema after our father’s demise in 1992. On October 14 last year, we shut down since the single screens were not getting good response,” said owner Ashok Nandy. Tragedy struck the family on Jagaddhatri Puja, when Rathindranath passed away following a massive cerebral attack.
Meanwhile, the collections of ‘Prajapoti’, ‘Hatyapuri’, ‘Haami 2’, ‘Ballabhpurer Roopkotha’ and ‘Durgeshgorer Guptodhon’ showed that people were again flocking to single-screens to watch Bengali films. “We decided to go for renovation. Our initial capacity was 520, including 110 balcony seats. From a non-AC hall, we have now introduced a glass-walled seating with 90 AC seats on the ground floor. There are 300 non-AC seats. In the balcony, we have 86 AC and non-AC seats. With the collections of ‘Prajapoti’ being phenomenal, we decided to open the AC sections on Republic Day with three shows. If the going is good, we will open the non-AC sections soon,” Nandy said.
That task doesn’t seem uphill for him with the nearest cinema in the vicinity being KPS Mall in Hooghly, 8km away, and Sushama in Sheorapuli being 10km away. “Chandernagore doesn’t have a cinema. If a Bengali film manages to reopen at least one single screen, it’s a big achievement for us distributors,” said Satadeep Saha, the distributor of ‘Prajapoti’.
Atanu Raychaudhuri, producer of ‘Projapoti’, said, “Many single-screen owners converted their cinemas to malls and had double screens with lower capacity on one floor. Their argument was that people no longer have the habit of watching films in large numbers. This reopening shows promise of the return of the era of single screens.” “We have a capacity of 1,000 viewers. For ‘Prajapoti’, we have seen consistent houseful shows for multiple weekends. For ‘Pathaan’, even blackers returned in front of Basusree,” said Basusree’s Sourav Bose.