Alfred Hitchcock explained the term “MacGuffin” on the Dick Cavett Show with a tall tale. Two men were travelling on a train. One looks at a curious package on the shelf and asks the other man what it is. “Oh, that’s a MacGuffin,” the other man replies. Further intrigued, the enquirer wants to know what on god’s green earth a MacGuffin could be. “It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands." Our enquirer had never been this baffled. There are no lions in the Scottish Highlands, he objected. “Well, then that’s no MacGuffin!” said the other man, and that was that. Hitchcock goes on to explain on the show, “It’s the thing that characters on the screen worry about but the audience don’t care.”

The MacGuffin in Jayabrata Das’s debut directorial, The Academy of Fine Arts, is an antique liquor bottle called MacGuffin. The film follows a ragtag band of criminals whose heist of the MacGuffin unravels into betrayal and cascading violence. The very first scene of two goons in a car discussing how to fix a “Chinese peg” signals the film’s self-awareness, nay, Tarantino-awareness. It’s not just the stylised credits, the animated sequences, the pop culture-laced dialogues, or even the nods to Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs scattered throughout the film. Good old QT makes his presence felt in ways that only fans can discern, like an alcohol ad that screams the tagline “It’s too much fun” echoing Tarantino’s iconic television interview with movie critic Jan Wahl where she grills him about violence, inspiring the now-viral quip “Because it’s so much fun, Jan. Get it!”

There are many firsts for Bengali cinema in The Academy of Fine Arts, but most of them would make the bhadralok audience wince and shake their heads in collective disapproval. In fact, the title of the film is a dig at the rampant elitism of Bengali filmdom. Despite its well-earned reputation, the cinema of Bengal has rarely veered away from the familiar. Some genres are seen as too coarse for the genteel Bengali palate. Violence as an aesthetic, whenever it has appeared in Bengali cinema, has done so as part of the “action film” genre, a pale, tired imitation of Hindi and, more recently, Telugu films. No Bengali director has ever shown any affection for Martin Scorsese’s bloodletting or Tarantino’s operatic brand of violence.

The Academy of Fine Arts sheds blood in the bucketfuls. But to ask an obvious question, how much violence is too much? “Humans are instinctively violent”, says the director Jayabrata Das. “Over the years, we have invented social norms and laws to keep us in check.” This worldview is, of course, shared by the director’s idol Tarantino, and the likes of Martin Scorsese and Anurag Kashyap. But it goes beyond the preserve of cinema. Legendary Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar is known to have said, “Without violence, man would have turned into a vegetable.”

“But in cinema,” Jayabrata elaborates, “violence can exist as a form of expression. Most mainstream films glorify violence by stylising it. In The Academy of Fine Arts, we have consciously used it as a tool of narrative progression. None of the characters who indulge in bloodshed have been shown as heroes.” Each of the characters in the film is associated with one cardinal sin. Amit Saha’s brilliant turn as the mute carnivore who won’t even let cats or dogs go undevoured, refers to gluttony. Saurav Das’ ironically named Jiban, delivering death with calm efficiency, personifies wrath. And so on. Practically all principal characters in The Academy of Fine Arts draw blood, but find their comeuppance in rather satisfactory ways. Like the best films in this class, the grisliness is operatic and, might I add, jolly good fun, provided you have the stomach for it.

When it comes to performances, the film earns its keep. Rudranil Ghosh is a force of nature as Dinabandhu Mitra. He demolishes the fourth wall often and at will, and dishes out punchlines with delightful precision. Ghosh holds the entire enterprise together with the sheer force of personality, his years of experience evident in every quiver of his voice, every flicker on his face. Amit Saha, fresh from the success of Pradipta Bhattacharyya’s Nadharer Bhela/The Slow Man and his Raft, proves that he is here to stay. Saurav Das’ dead eyes make Jiban uncannily effective. Payel Sarkar and Anuradha Mukherjee sparkle in their parts, but the female characters feel somewhat underwritten. The other standout role is that of the late Rahul Arunoday Banerjee as Rakhal Pakrashi (four months after the film released, Rahul passed away in a freak accident while shooting for a TV series).

Jayabrata and his crew, all recent graduates from the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, were excited enough to put in their own money to fund the film. But they didn’t know how to go about casting. A random Facebook acquaintance suggested that they should speak to Rudranil Ghosh. “We went to Rudranil da and narrated the idea,” recalls Jayabrata. “He loved the story and not only offered to work pro bono, he also helped us round up the rest of the cast!” Ghosh called up some actors they thought would fit the bill, and meetings were scheduled. Most of them loved the script. Slowly but surely, the cast of the film took shape. This was 2021. Over the next 2-3 years, they kept shooting whenever they got a window and whenever they had the funds.

Somewhere along the way, Pramod Films came in. The banner, founded by veteran Bollywood filmmaker Pramod Chakravorty back in the mid-1960s, is now headed by his grandson Prateek Chakravorty. “We had shot around 80 per cent of the film when all our money ran out”, recalls Jayabrata. “We made a short trailer highlighting what we had shot, and circulated it with Rudranil-da’s help. Prateek was the only one who responded, agreeing to fund our film.”

It was fortuitous because Jayabrata was on the lookout for some retro songs to go with the kitschy vibe of his film. He had one song in mind that Prateek, of all people, owned the rights to: Churi chhara kaaj nei (“Stealing is all you know”) from Teen Murti (1984), which resonates clearly with what the unholy protagonists of the film are up to. “Prateek agreed to part with the rights of that one song. But our music-scape was inspired from the 80s, so we kept asking for more, ultimately ending up with a whole bunch of vintage songs which were used in the film,” says Jayabrata.

These numbers are used with great effect at opportune moments. For instance, right before a particularly violent sequence, Kishore’s velvet voice croons “Hothon pe jaan chali aayegi”. Or as the carnivore Bireshwar (Amit Saha) brews a meaty concoction, “Kaliyon ka chaman” wafts in the background. Besides these, there were 18 original tracks composed exclusively for the film. “Those tracks were decided between me, the editor, and the music director. We decided the kind of music according to the tempo of a particular scene. It was a long process, which took us around 4 months. One original song was composed by Rishi Panda, the rest were all by Soumya Rit.”

With Pramod Films on board, a theatrical release was imminent. The raw immediacy of the trailer created a sensation on social media. Suddenly, everyone was talking about The Academy of Fine Arts. But then, just a day before the scheduled release on November 14, 2025, the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India and EIMPA stalled the release of the film. Reason? The iron-clad rules of the Federation about basic minimum hiring weren’t followed.

No longer a student film

The problem went much deeper. Federation president Swarup Biswas had gained a certain notoriety for his stranglehold on the industry, with stories of abuse, intimidation, and blackmail circulating in hushed tones. Those who spoke out were silenced unceremoniously. Jayabrata never expected The Academy of Fine Arts to be caught in the storm, but it did. The moment a production house was involved, it no longer remained just a student film, Swarup and his minions argued, and hence Federation rules applied. What complicated matters was that Pramod Films allegedly had unpaid dues from a previous film they had produced. Jayabrata felt helpless. It was his firstborn, and there were chances it would never see the light of day. But after multiple meetings, entreaties, calls, WhatsApp conversations, and plenty of heartburn, The Academy of Fine Arts was cleared for release on November 21, 2025.

Initially a limited release, the film had its first houseful show within the week. Word spread like wildfire on a hot summer afternoon and soon, they had houseful shows across more than 90 viewings. The number of screens increased exponentially. Social media spilled over with memes, dialogues, and reaction videos. The Academy of Fine Arts had taken the audiences by storm. It was screened at the state-sponsored Nandan, which is a cultural hub and seen as the preserve of serious filmmakers. Recently, ZEE5 premiered The Academy of Fine Arts: Raw & Uncensored, repackaging and expanding the film as a six-episode series, playing up the zany, unhinged feel.

On the morning of the release, Jayabrata had written on Facebook: “We don’t have the means to visit theatres and shoot reaction videos. Those of you who like the film, kindly post videos and reviews yourselves. We’d love to know what you think of our film.” In less than a month, he was appearing on podcasts, news channels, and posting selfies with fans from packed multiplexes. Meanwhile, Swarup Biswas, the Federation president who had stalled the film’s release, was arrested on serious charges, including extortion and molestation. It was a poetic twist, one that Tarantino would surely approve of.

Amborish Roychoudhury is a national award-winning writer and film historian.

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