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 Kal Rudra
Aishi Bhattacharya as young Rani Arundhati
Priyanka Rati Pal as Iraboti
Debshankar Haldar as Fakir Baba
Soma Banerjee as Annada ma
Sujoy as Mishti's would be husband Sid
Chandicharan as Misti's grand father
Swarnava Sanyal as Arundhati's son
Debesh Roy Chowdhury as Aghori Tantrik
Bharat Kaul as Raja Krishna Kishore Bhatta
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
Production
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.