Zubeen Garg’s last film ‘Roi Roi Binale’ is geared up for its release on Friday across all screens of Assam.
With tickets of all shows for the next one week sold out, Garg’s musical is expected to break all past records and create new milestones for Assamese cinema in the future.
With massive emotional outpouring for the release, exhibitors have increased the number of shows. Some hall owners have decided to project seven shows of the film in a day, starting from as early as 4.45 am and the last show at around midnight, which will end at around 2.30 am.
In ‘Roi Roi Binale’, Garg is playing the lead character, who is a blind musician. The Zubeen Garg musical film has 11 songs, composed by himself.
The film revolves around the life of a musician and his struggle. The trailer showed that the musician was lying senseless on the sea beach and one person was trying to wake him up, a startling coincidence with his death.
The celebrated singer died under mysterious circumstances in Singapore on September 19 while swimming in the sea.
After the release of the trailer, there was an outpouring of emotional posts and netizens questioned whether Garg could foresee his end.
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“The sea is really vast. Will I be able to swim?” — the dialogue in the trailer also hit the viewers emotionally.
Garg, who never shied away from declaring innumerable times that he was a ‘social-leftist’, is seen uttering a line in the 1:54-minute clip, “I am an artiste. And an artiste should have only one politics — to stand with the masses, not with the monarch!” The singer had publicly proclaimed that he is a follower of Che Guevara, Charlie Chaplin and Bishnu Prasad Rava — all belonging to the communist school of ideology.
‘Roi Roi Binale’ was one of Garg’s hit songs from the 90s and he had termed it as the “darkest” number written by him.
Garg is also the producer of the Rajesh Bhuyan-directed 146-minute long film ‘Roi Roi Binale’ along with his wife Garima and Shyamantak Gautam.
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In the last three weeks, the film’s trailer, title track and a few other songs were released. These have been cumulatively viewed by more than one crore people on YouTube.
“The stage is all set to release the last film of Zubeen Garg in a grand manner. So far, 91 screens across the Northeast and almost 90 in the rest of the country will screen the film from tomorrow,” film content provider UFO Moviez India General Manager (Sales and Distribution) Sourav Dutta told PTI in an interview.
No Assamese cinema has ever reached this scale of release and the response is also extremely overwhelming, he added.
“Almost all shows for the next one week at BookMyShow are sold out or filling fast. The emotional quotient is very high in this film with Zubeen Garg’s untimely demise. We are working day-and-night to fulfill the demand,” Dutta said.
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He said that 14 new screens will be added to meet the growing demand, and the number of halls, as well as shows, is increasing with every passing minute.
“Our teams are on the field for the last 15 days. We are installing new projectors almost every day. I have never seen such demand for any film in this region in my entire career,” Dutta said.
The film, which will be projected by all the content providers like UFO, Cube and KSS, will also be released in some cities of India where no Assamese cinema saw the light of the day earlier, he added.
He said places like Lucknow, Indore, Patna, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Kochi, Jaipur, Surat, Ranchi, Dhanbad, Coimbatore and Goa, where no Assamese film was screened before, will showcase ‘Roi Roi Binale’ from Friday.
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When asked about demands from such new cities, Dutta said, “Two factors are working here. First, there is natural curiosity among the public, who are non-Assamese, to know about Zubeen Garg. Secondly, many multiplex chains have decided to release the film on their screens across the country.” The distributor also received a screening request from Nepal, but it is not yet finalised, he added.
Speaking on show frequency, Dutta said, “On an average, there will be five shows every day. However, some halls have increased the number to seven shows. We have advised not to do it in this way as the machine also needs some rest. Otherwise, we may see a breakdown.” Goenka Enterprises’ Siddharth Goenka, the distributor of ‘Roi Roi Binale’, told PTI that the film is likely to continue uninterrupted for at least two months in the Northeast, especially Assam.
“From tomorrow, there is no other film in any hall in Assam. The hall owners have pre-booked the film for the next few weeks. There will be 600 shows every day and it is unthinkable for Assamese cinema,” he added.
Goenka said that he is continuously receiving requests from newer places, but not able to meet the demand.
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Assam Police IGP (Law and Order) Akhilesh Kumar Singh said security personnel will be stationed outside the theatres to maintain order.
“Our personnel will be deployed… We will limit ourselves only to crowd management. This is an emotional film and we are all looking forward to it,” he added.
The Assam cabinet on Wednesday decided that the government will hand over the state’s share of GST from ‘Roi Roi Binale’ to Kalaguru Artiste Foundation, set up by the singer for welfare of the downtrodden.
