Arundhati (2014 film)

Arundhati is a 2014 Indian Bengali horror thriller film directed by Sujit Mondal and produced by Shree Venkatesh Films and Surinder Films. The film stars Koel Mallick as a warrior queen. It is the remake of the 2009 Telugu movie of the same name.

Development
The film is jointly produced by Rajib Tandoon, under the banner of their production houses. It is the remake of the 2009 Telugu film Arundhati, starring actors Anushka Shetty and Sonu Sood. The film was around a budget of 6-7 crores INR.

Cast

 * Koel Mallick as Rani Arundhati aka Moni Maa/ Arundhati aka Mishti
 * Indraneil Sengupta as Rudra AKA Kal Rudra
 * Aishi Bhattacharya as young Rani Arundhati
 * Priyanka Rati Pal as Iraboti, Arundhati's elder sister and wife of Rudra
 * Debshankar Haldar as Fakir Baba
 * Soma Banerjee as Annada ma, Chief Maid and friend of Moni Maa and the eldest member of Dhulibari
 * Sujoy as Mishti's would be husband Sid
 * Chandicharan as Misti's grand father and Arundhati's son
 * Swarnava Sanyal as young Arundhati's son
 * Debesh Roy Chowdhury as Aghori Tantrik
 * Bharat Kaul as Raja Krishna Kishore Bhatta, father of Iraboti and Arundhati
 * Kaushik Chakraborty as Agnidev Bhatta
 * Chandraneev Mukherjee as Shomu
 * Mousumi Saha as Mishti's mother
 * Dulal Lahiri as priest
 * Basudeb Mukherjee as Gurudeb
 * Swagata Mukherjee as Maya (Rudra's mother)
 * Moyna Mukherjee

Casting
Koel Mallick will be seen as a warrior queen for the first time in this film. Regarding her role, she said, "Till the time you don’t experiment or take risks, you don’t know to what level you can go. Playing these larger-than-life characters isn't easy, specially because I have never done it. I needed to first believe in the subject. I believe in reincarnation and life after death. After saying yes, I had to really work very hard on getting Arundhati's body language right."

Filming
Filming of Arundhati  started on 24 October 2013. Mallick was reported to have a very busy schedule during the filming of Arundhati. She had to learn horse-riding and sword-fighting for portraying her character in this film. Her horse-riding classes were taken by expert Vikram Rathore, at the Kolkata Maidan during the early hours of the day. Shooting locations include Bolpur and Kolkata. Her sword-fighting sequences are based on the martial art Kalaripayattu.

Soundtrack
Jeet Gannguli and Koti composed the music for Arundhati.

Awards

 * Star Jalsha Award for Best Actress for Arundhati (2014 film) in 2014