Interestingly, the area where now stands the ‘Chalachitra Shatabarsha Bhawan’ used to house the famous Radha Studio and thus, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee named the newly-made auditorium ‘Radha Studio’.
Kolkata: As per West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s promise from the stage of the 27th Calcutta International Film Festival, the Preview Theater of the ‘Chalachitra Shatabarsha Bhawan’ in Tollygunge was opened for the public last Friday and christened ‘Radha Studio’.
Interestingly, the area where now stands the ‘Chalachitra Shatabarsha Bhawan’ used to house the famous Radha Studio and thus, Banerjee named the newly-made auditorium ‘Radha Studio’ which has a total of 152 seats and the price of each ticket is Rs 30.
The movie ‘Kismis’, starring Dev and Rukmini, was launched at 1 pm on Friday as the first movie in the new auditorium. Dev, who is the protagonist of the film, requested the general public to come to the hall and watch Bengali movies and appealed to the Chief Minister to build such cinema halls in every city of the state.
In the era of talkies after the silent films of Hiralal Sen, the first director of Bengali cinema, countless movies were shot in Radha Studio or the ‘Film Centenary Building’. Movies like ‘Gita’ (1931) starring Tinkari Chakraborty, Jahar Gangopadhyay, Lalita Devi, ‘Sandigdha’ (1932) starring Renu Devi and Prafulla Roy, Prafulla Ghosh’s ‘Sri Gaurango’ (1933) starring Kanan Devi, Ahindra Chowdhury and Tulsi Chakraborty starrer ‘Dakshajogya’ (1934), Kanan Devi’s ‘Manmoyi Girls High School’ (1935), Ahindra Chowdhury starring ‘Janak Nandini’ (1939), Kali Banerjee and Sandhyarani starring Manoranjan Bhattacharya’s ‘Badsha’ (1963) and many more.
The inaugural function of the historic Radha Studio was attended by Arup Biswas, Minister for Youth, Sports and Power, Indranil Sen, Minister for Information and Culture, director Gautam Ghosh, Harnath Chakraborty, Dev, Soham and others.
Every government cinema hall is based on a ‘50% Revenue Sharing Model’. That is, after deducting GST, 50% revenue of a film goes to the government and the rest goes to a film producer.
In a single screen and multiplex, revenue sharing in the first week is 50%. In the second week, it drops to 42.5% in multiplexes and 40% in single screen cinema halls. And, in the third week, it comes down further to 37.5% in multiplexes and 30% in single screens.
For this revenue sharing model, another government cinema hall in Kolkata sees a competition among producers — ‘Nandan’ — which has 931 seats.
Although the number of seats in Radha Studio is less, an effort has been made by the West Bengal government to attract people to watch Bengali movies, to maintain love and to give a push to the Bengali film industry.
