Tenzin Dalha, at the Toronto Film Festival with Jennifer Peedom’s Apple original Film “Tenzing,” has been revealed as the male lead in Bengali-language thriller “Chheledhora,” opposite Swastika Mukherjee.
His casting had been withheld when the Indo-American production was first announced earlier this year, with producers naming only Mukherjee at that point.
“Tenzing,” a gala presentation at TIFF, features Genden Phuntsok as legendary mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, with Tom Hiddleston, Willem Dafoe and Caitríona Balfe also in the cast. A limited theatrical run begins Oct. 9, with global streaming on Apple TV following Oct. 16.
In “Chheledhora,” written and directed by Shieladitya Moulik – whose credits include “Sweater” and “Surjo” – Dalha and Mukherjee anchor a story set off by an act of parental defiance. Mukherjee plays Brishti, a divorced mother who “steals” her own daughter for a birthday outing, only for the child to be genuinely abducted. The discovery then draws a group of deeply flawed adults and their children into an erratic journey through Northeast India, where the youngest characters gradually emerge as the moral compass for the adults around them. Filmed extensively in Arunachal Pradesh’s Ziro Valley, the production combines family drama, thriller elements and dark humor with the cultural texture of India’s Northeast. It is currently in post-production.
“We made a very conscious decision not to announce Tenzin when we first revealed ‘Chheledhora,’” said Ann Mukherjee, founder of Indo-American production company Sita22 Films. “We knew he had this extraordinary international moment ahead of him with ‘Tenzing,’ and TIFF felt like exactly the right time for audiences to discover another side of him. Tenzin possesses a quiet emotional intelligence and restraint that makes him a fascinating counterpoint to Swastika’s tremendous emotional force. Their chemistry is central to the film.”
Mukherjee described “Chheledhora” as a film that makes both a physical and emotional journey into India’s Northeast. “We want to tell stories that are deeply rooted in India but aren’t constrained by conventional ideas of language, geography or identity,” she said.
Dalha said it felt “particularly special” to be discussing one project while at the festival for another. “They are completely different films, yet rooted in human grit, empathy, the lengths to which humans are capable of going for people they love,” he said. “What drew me to ‘Chheledhora’ was Shieladitya’s writing. His understanding of humans as imperfect complex beings and looking at life beyond the dichotomy of individuals as good or bad. He wrote these beautiful broken young adult characters making questionable choices for their loved ones.”
The actor described Mukherjee as “a force of nature in frame and a force of joy on set,” adding that the Arunachal landscape shaped the film’s atmosphere from the outset. “Shooting in Ziro and Arunachal Pradesh provided the perfect backdrop for a thriller, and the weather set the tone right for the ambience,” he said.
The film is produced by Ann Mukherjee for Sita22 Films, with Jitin Hingorani as co-producer and creative producer, Dhanraj Sawant as executive producer and Priyangi Borthakur as supervising producer. Italian cinematographer Vincenzo Condorelli shot the film.
“The idea was never to make a Bengali film that simply happens to travel to the Northeast,” said Hingorani, who also heads content and development at Sita22 Films. “The journey changes these characters, and the Northeast becomes part of the film’s emotional language. Pairing Swastika and Tenzin gives us two performers coming from very different cinematic and cultural energies, and that tension is part of what makes the film so exciting. At Sita22, our mandate is to find stories that can be hyper-local and super-global at the same time, and ‘Chheledhora’ embodies that philosophy beautifully.”
