Shantanu Maheshwari opens up on his Bengali film debut with Chaalchitro, success of Campus Beats and the underwhelming response to Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha
Shantanu Maheshwari has had a pretty incredible year with him having a theatrical release in Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, an OTT release with Campus Beats, he has started shooting for his international project Love In Vietnam and also made a Cannes appearance for the same. And now, Shantanu Maheshwari has made his Bengali film debut with Chaalchitro.
A Bengali by birth, this project holds a much more special meaning for the actor: “I don’t know about pressure, but there is nervousness because Kolkata audience is very different to Bollywood. They have a very different sense about cinema, and I am nervous about how they are going to be judging my performance. But I am happy that I am getting to do something for the audience of the place where I come from. It’s my first regional cinema and it’s where I come from. So, it’s something that I am proud of.”
He adds, “I am happy with the fact that finally, I’ve got a chance to do something in Bengali cinema. I had been trying to do this for a very long time but wasn’t finding a route. However, eventually things fell in place.”
It’s been almost a month since Campus Beats 4 released and it enjoys a dedicated large fanbase. Even Shantanu admits he didn’t expect the show to explode like it did. “I understand it could be expected to be similar to other youth dance shows like Dil Dosti Dance, but it has been more than 10 years to it. The people who used to watch have started working. So, there’s a new set of audiences and it was important for us to make a show for them. I was very sure of this show but the scale of response is something that I had not expected. In today’s time, when the quantity of content being made is so high that people leave watching one show in between to see another, we have an audience that has seen the show twice or thrice. This used to happen during the 2010s when youth shows were being made,” he says.
While the highs were countless this year for the actor, there was a low as well with the underwhelming response to Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha. Reacting to that, Shantanu says, “I didn’t know what to expect from the film. On the performance aspect, the people loved my performance, so I am happy about it. But I was not very disappointed as my director was happy with me. I believed in this script, and we all collaborated on it. Now if it will work or not was not at all in our hands. This was an experience that taught us that jab tak badiya chal raha hai, tab tak hi thaath hai.”
