The Bengal Files

The film looks at the days before the partition of India. At its centre is 16 August 1946. Large scale communal violence took place in Calcutta that day. Events continued afterwards in Noakhali. The story is built backwards from the present. An investigator goes after a missing person. The investigation opens onto something else. Someone who lived through the events recounts the past. The film presents those events in its own frame. That approach drew argument. Criminal complaints were filed before release. A trailer launch in Calcutta was called off. Relatives of a real person portrayed in the film also complained. The director said he had relied on his research. It opened on 5 September 2025. Reviews were mixed and it did not draw the expected audience. Anupam Kher and Mithun Chakraborty appear in the two hundred and five minute film, an Indian production Vivek Agnihotri finished in 2025.