Dabaru

Dabaru (Bengali pronunciation: [d̪abaɾu] transl. The Chess Master) is a 2024 Indian Bengali-language biographical sports drama film directed by Pathikrit Basu. Produced by Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee under the banner of Windows Production, the film is based on the life of the Indian chess Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly. The film chronicles the journey of Ganguly from North Kolkata's slums to becoming India's youngest Grandmaster at age 19, played by Arghya Basu Roy. It also features an ensemble cast of Dipankar De, Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Rituparna Sengupta, Shankar Chakraborty and Kaushik Sen in another pivotal roles.

Development on the film began in early 2022, when Roy and Mukherjee approached Aritra Banerjee to begin writing the script, in his debut as a screenwriter. He had interviewed Ganguly, along with its dialogue writer Arpan Gupta. Principal photography commenced in July 2023; predominantly shot in Kolkata, portions were filmed in Chennai and Germany. Modhura Palit served as the cinematographer and MD. Kalam as the editor. Bonnie Chakraborty scored the film's background music and soundtrack, with Prasen as the guest composer. Samriddha Ghosh, a coach with the Indian women's chess team, trained Basu Roy and the cast for the chess sequences.

Dabaru was released worldwide on 10 May 2024 to universal critical acclaim, with praise centered on the film's "honest" depiction of a real-life story and performance by its whole cast, including the emotional weight. It was a commercial success, being noted as the first Indian film depicted on chess.