Ami, Shey O Shakha

Ami, Shey O Shakha (Bengali pronunciation: [ami, ʃe o ʃakʰa] transl. Me, Him and Our Friend) is a 1975 Indian Bengali-language drama film co-written and directed by Mangal Chakravarty. Produced by Shyamal Mitra and Deepen Bhattacharya under the banner of S. D. Productions, the film is based on a novel of the same name by Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay. It stars Uttam Kumar in dual roles, alongside Anil Chatterjee, Arati Bhattacharya and Kaberi Bose in lead roles.

The film plots a deprived person who is indebted for virtually everything he has, lands in a perplexing situation, finding himself in a situation where he has to give up his love and profession. It marks the fifth collaboration between Chakraborty and Kumar, and is also the second film of Kumar and Bhattacharya together. Filming took places in Kolkata, Digha and Lucknow. Music of the film is composed by Mitra himself, with lyrics penned by Gauriprasanna Mazumder. The cinematography and editing were handled by Bijoy Ghosh and Rabin Das respectively.

Ami, Shey O Shakha theatrically released on 11 April 1975, opening to highly positive reviews. It got appraisal for its screenplay, cinematography, score and the specific performance by Kumar in dual roles. Gaining a cult status over the years, Ami, Shey O Shakha was remade into Hindi by Hrishikesh Mukherjee as Bemisal (1982), with Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Mehra and Rakhee Gulzar playing the characters originally played Kumar, Chatterjee and Bose respectively. Ravi Kinnagi also felicitated the film in his directorial Premi (2004), starring Jeet and Jisshu Sengupta.