Aug 12, 2026 5:40pm IST
Srijit Mukherji’s ‘Maharaja Tomare Selam’ Eyes 2027 Release Alongside Satyajit Ray’s Restored ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Satyajit Ray’s iconic “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” (1969) is being restored by the Film Heritage Foundation in collaboration with Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation. The announcement coincided with the poster launch of “Maharaja Tomare Selam,” Srijit Mukherji’s tribute to the making of Ray’s classic. Both films are set to release next year.
Mukherji tells Variety India that the timing could not have been more fitting. “The coincidence is a very happy one. The impact of the movie on me as a filmmaker came much later. It is an incredible part of my childhood and adolescence. I feel it is an incredible musical.”
Mukherji traces the idea for “Maharaja Tomare Selam” to research he began in 2021, when he was developing “Doshor,” a web series about maestros of Bengali cinema. However, after learning that Anik Dutta was making “Aparajito,” about Ray’s struggle to make “Pather Panchali,” he decided to take his project in another direction.
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He says, “I aborted my plans to make the series and took out episodes from them to develop the script for my film, ‘Padatik,’ that dealt with the life of filmmaker Mrinal Sen. However, the research that went into the 10-episode series was still with me. It has numerous stories on the making of other films. I zeroed down on the making of ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’ and ‘Maharaja Tomare Selam’ was born.” A former economist and statistician, Mukherji is also one of the most prolific directors of the West Bengal film industry. His upcoming releases in 2026 include “Emperor vs Sarat Chandra” and “Winkle Twinkle.”
The filmmaker believes the restoration effort must extend beyond Ray’s films. His work on “Oti Uttam,” which required him to examine 52 films starring Uttam Kumar, exposed the poor condition of several Bengali classics.
Mukherji shares, “When I was making the film ‘Oti Uttam,’ I had to go through 52 films of Uttam Kumar. Most of them were in disastrous condition and the sound was often damaged. The films haven’t been preserved. I had a difficult time getting the footage. Restoring milestone Bengali movies is a must. And of course that includes Ray’s films.”
He also cites Tarun Majumdar’s “Sansar Seemantey” (1975), which was among Ray’s favorite films, as a work that needs immediate restoration. “I think restoration is a very important process, which needs to be regularized for most Bengali films from the 1950s to the 1970s. Those decades were a golden period with multiple classics. Ray, being the international giant he is, gets priority, but after his canon is done, we should move on to other films,” he says.
Mukherji believes the works of Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak and Tapan Sinha, among others, also deserve preservation. He names Ajoy Kar, Ardhendu Mukhopadhyay, Salil Dutta and Salil Sen as filmmakers whose work should be restored and brought back into focus.
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