Director Debaditya Bandyopadhyay’s film 8:08 Er Bongaon Local was screened at 26th Kolkata International Film Festival. The director attended the press conference of the film.

The story of the film is about Ananta Das, a middle-class man who travels to Kolkata daily on the 8:08 Er Bongaon Local. He attends the office in Kolkata and he meets various known and unknown people during his journey to and fro from Kolkata. He sees many incidents and that creates a deep impression on his life. One such incident was the murder of the brother who protested against a group of drunkards who were teasing his elder sister. This was the Rajiv murder case in Barasat.

Ananta Das remained silent initially. However, one day, he protests against the happenings. As a result, he stands out as a spirit of protest. He becomes the target of the leaders. What happens next?

“When I was searching for the name of the film, I was looking at the names of the various railway stations. Bongaon struck me because a huge number of people come to Kolkata from Bongaon for work and they again go back home after finishing their work. That is the reason why I chose Bongaon” said the director.

The producer of the film is Tarun Rauth and the screenplay has been penned down by Padmanabha Dasgupta.

The music has been composed by Tanmoy Bose.

“When I cast Tapas Pal for this film, he had become a character actor and his star value was not enough to sell a film. The actor was aware of that. And he worked extra hard to portray the role of Ananta Das. His performance was wonderful and the audience loved his work” said the director.

The cast of the film consists of Tapas Pal, Swastika Mukherjee, Anushree Das, Manoj Mitra, Bhaskar Banerjee, and Baby Sanika.

The film was screened in the special tribute section to late actor Tapas Pal.

Priyanka Dutta