In the Ring: Mithila Palkar, Jaaved Jaaferi in film on Kolkata’s Burqa-clad boxers

Cannes: The burqa-clad boxers of Kolkata are ready to tell their story of struggle and survival on the big screen.

'In the Ring', a new feature film project announced at the film market of the 75th Cannes film festival, is inspired by the real life experiences of women boxers in Khidderpore, a Hindi-speaking neighbourhood in the West Bengal capital where young Muslim girls fought against discrimination to learn the sport over two decades ago.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Alka Raghuram, the film will begin shooting in Kolkata in December. The feature film, also written by the US-based Raghuram, follows her 2016 documentary, 'Burqa Boxers'.

"I started writing this script while I was filming the documentary," says Reghuram. "While the immersion into their world allowed me to tell the documentary story in the style of 'realism', it also made me want to explore the interiority of the characters via a more stylized narrative and style," she adds.

Khidderpore's famous boxer Razia Shabanam, the first Indian woman to become an international boxing referee, will play the role of a boxing coach in the film, an international production with actors from neighbouring Bangladesh.

A fictionalised account of the Burqa boxers of Khidderpore, 'In the Ring' is a psychological thriller about Shama, a 17-year-old boxer who exchanges places with her twin sister to fight in the National Championship after being framed in her aunt’s murder.

"Much of the experiences of the protagonist are inspired from real experiences that the Muslim women boxing community of Kolkata Khidderpore have gone through, giving a different layer of intensity to the stories of these minority women," said Sreyashii Sengupta, founder of Singapore-based film production house Darpan Global, who will produce the film with Souvikk Dasgupta of Oriizon Global India.

"Most of the financing is in place as well as the principal cast, which is from India and Bangladesh," says Sengupta. "It is a big step for Indian and Bangladeshi cinema," she adds. 'Girl in the City' TV series actor Mithila Palkar will play the double roles of Shama and her twin sister Houma.

The cast includes Jaaved Jaaferi and Bangladeshi actor Siam Ahmed. "It is time we cross-collaborated on talent beyond the border," says Sengupta about casting actors from Bangladesh.

Sengupta says she wanted to cast Nikhat Zareen, the flyweight boxer from Telangana who won gold in 52 kg category at the World Boxing Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, last week. "We had plans to cast Nikhat Zareen in the film, but it didn't come through," she adds.

The film, which is in Hindi, will be shot in Khidderpore, where Wajid Ali Shah, the last king of Awadh was exiled by the British in the late 19th century. Shah and others from Lucknow who followed him to Kolkata created their Hindi-speaking community that later became the Khidderpore neighbourhood. (UNI)