Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 18, 2014)

A war of cinematic sensibilities has erupted between Bengali filmmaker Anik Dutta and Bollywood's Satish Kaushik. Mirror has learnt that Dutta isn’t impressed with Gang Of Ghosts, the Hindi remake of his Bengali film, Bhooter Bhabishyat. He alleges that the producers of the original didn’t even take his consent before selling the remake rights to Ratan Jain of Venus. “I was kept in the dark throughout and had no idea what the guys in Mumbai were up to,” he groused when Mirror contacted him in Kolkata. He insisted, “The entire process was very unfair.”

 Dutta insists that despite this he would have been okay with the arrangement had Gang Of Ghosts stayed true to its source material. “But from what I can see in the trailer, it looks cheap and tacky. My film was appreciated by filmmakers like Mrinal Sen and Anurag Kashyap. But the art direction of the remake is terrible, they haven’t been able to put it into context or make it culturally relevant.”

Reacting to this, Kaushik said, “How can I please everyone? In Bengal sensibilities are more artistic but I am making a Bollywood film." To this Dutta retorted, “My film was almost shelved and eventually it got a limited release. Yet Bhooter Bhabishyat went on to do terrific business all over the country. Its treatment was as mainstream as any Bollywood film. You can’t use that as an excuse for a poor product, sorry.”

While Kaushik says he’s made certain changes to make the film more Mumbai-centric. “It’s impossible to make the film with the same style and ambience as the original. I feel more comfortable with a masala-film and that’s what I have made,” he signed off.