Private Project

The Wound

The film is about memories: a record of places, people and professions that once gone will never return, and of the mysterious beauty of the man-made ruins that mark the transition from the Calcutta of authentic tradition to the new one of "modernity". It's a very personal story told through the eyes of a photographer.

  • Bijoy Chowdhury
    Director
  • Bijoy Chowdhury
    Writer
  • The Night Alley Productions
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    19 minutes 42 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 18, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    3,500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    Bengali, English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • The Night Alley Productions
    Country: India
    Rights: All Rights, Video on Demand
Director Biography - Bijoy Chowdhury

Bijoy Chowdhury (d-1961) Graduated from the Government College of Art and Craft, Calcutta. Now working as a Visual Communicator and Photographer based in Kolkata.

A committed and obsessive documentary photographer, Bijoy’s work has won both several National and International recognition. At the national level, his excellence and skill in photography won him the Nirman and Photo Division Award. Internationally, he has been honored twice with the Commonwealth Photography Award. He has also received the National Geographic Traveller Photo Award in recognition of his lensmanship.

He exhibited his work during the India -Japan Friendship Year 2007 and has held a solo show at Pingyao International Photography Festival in China in 2007, on Bhuripi’ series In India he has held three solo show Exhibitions at National Centre of Performing Arts, Mumbai in the year of 1992 and 1995 and Indian International Centre, New Delhi in the year of 2007.
He is also a participant at the group exhibition in Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh at The Whitechapel Gallery London, 2010. International Photography Magazine 'PRIVATE' published his portfolio at two times. Several National and International Magazines have also published his portfolio. His work has been exhibited and acclaimed in India , London , Amsterdam , Sweden China and Japan.

He continues to work on several long-term photo and Video projects of socio-economic interest. His major works are Bohurupi- The Living God , Bandwallahs, The Letter Box, The life of Sudder Street, Child and women brick kiln workers in West Bengal-1995-2010, Buddhies Monks in Sikkim, Chaina Town in Calcutta, Singur and Nandigram- The Revolt against SEZ, The Chainging Faces of Calcutta . Government of India also honored him with the Senior National Fellowship in photography.
He has traveled to USA and China to exhibit his works.

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Director Statement

…“Many besides Angel have learnt that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements but as to their subjective experiences.” Thomas Hardy

The film is about memories: a record of places, people and professions that once gone will never return, and of the mysterious beauty of the man-made ruins that mark the transition from the Calcutta of authentic tradition to the new one of “modernity”.

The film fundamentally is a voyage of a compulsive still photographer closely occupied with Kolkata city in India since last thirty five years. Kolkata is a city primarily developed by the colonial ruler in eighteenth century. Certainly, the city was structured for colonial aspirations. The city to me has always been loomed large in the imagination –city of old cultural sediments. The streets, and by-lanes move like serpents and meet old households and inhabitants. It is not at all so-called metropolises such as New Delhi or Bangalore threatened by ‘development’ But Calcutta to some extent similar to Lucknow. When I started to document the city, I did realize to make a video with literal process of the wrecking of the old houses and to note visually the material carries of memory—old family photographs left damaged on the walls of an abandoned dwelling awaiting demolition, the old kitchen utensils, small artifacts of everyday life, these all will be abandoned and never moved to the cramped new high-rise flat with its new appliances. My camera followed sympathetically to grasp the livelihoods are now the demolition of the old city—the migrant workers who have left the faded glories of their own once culturally and architecturally rich towns such as historic Murshidabad Dist. in West Bengal, India.