Zinemaya Blog

Samir Banerjee has been writing since the age of thirteen, he started to showcase his talent at the age of sixteen by writing and directing the two plays “An American In Mumbai” and “Hijack”. Both were received very well by the audience, having most of them rolling in the aisles with laughter. After he came to Boston to continue his studies he discovered the American independent scene and how a small “handycam” could go a long way. He started with a few music video’s and some cricket videos to get started.

In 2000 he decided to produce a short film called “Junoon” directed by his younger brother Sujoy and his friend Siddharth.
The aspiring director started SB Talkies Productions and shot another short film titled “Sophie” which was nominated at the New Jersey Film Festival and received a lot of accolades. Samir attended the New York Film Academy to obtain a filmmaking diploma and mingle with like minded industry folk. He directed “The Waiting”, “Gift Of Sight” and made two documentaries, one of which was about New York Taxi drivers. The other film was on a spiritual leader in Badlapur, India and was aired on India’s national network “Doordarshan”. Since then, Samir decided to focus on his career and concentrate on establishing himself in the corporate world.
He is currently looking forward to do a full length feature film, to be shot in Panchgani, based on a coming-of-age story of two young boys in a boarding school. When his second short Ammar Maa (My Mother) was shortlisted amongst the eight Indian films selected for the Cannes Short Film Corner, he shot to fame and exposure.

Being a marketing professional looking into various aspects of film production, Samir Banerjee works from 8:30am to 6:30pm every day, and dedicates 8pm to 1am to his passion for film-making. His film Ammar Maa
(My Mother) made its way to different film festivals around the globe like Yes India Film Festival, New Zealand, Stepping Stone Film Festival, Bangalore, India, Bombay Elektrik Showcase, Mumbai, India and was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, 2011. For Samir, the film started when a flight was delayed at the Nashville airport. He grabbed a copy of Arranged Marriage, acollection of short stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni from the airport bookstore. After reading the story “The Word Love” in that book, he guessed that it would be a gripping short film. He wrote the script on the flight back and started pre-production and casting the next morning.

Ammar Maa (My Mother) tells the story a Bengali woman named Moumita Sen who has lived with her mother for 27 years before moving to New York, to pursue her PHD. She falls in love with an American man named Mark and gets engaged to be married in six months. However she doesn’t know how to break the news to her traditional mother. She struggles to find an opportune moment, the right words to talk about her mother about this. She gets sick with thoughts.

This is the internal struggle for Moumita as she finds the right words, the right moment, the right phone call to break the news, but she is being consumed internally with medication and worry. The film takes the audience through the emotions of the protagonist, while her fiance Mark sees another side to the woman he loves. He tries to help her out of her situation until he realizes that it is impossible to extricate someone out of a state of mind that practically consumes her heart and mind.

When the mother finally learns about Mark, she disowns the daughter. The film has Rachna Shah, Don Castro, Pallavi Desai, Uttara Desai, and Avik Sur in the cast. Katsumi Funahashi, the critically acclaimed cinematographer has shot the film. Watch this highly appreciated film on zinemaya HERE.