At a glance
- Satyajit Ray shot much of Hirak Rajar Deshe (released December 1980) among the rocky hills of Joychandi Pahar near Raghunathpur, about 95 km from the resort.
- Buddhadeb Dasgupta, born in 1944 at Anara near Purulia, used Purulia locations for Uttara (2000) and shot Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (2002) there.
- Part of the Hindi film Lootera (2013) was shot in Purulia in early 2012, with scenes reported at the Deulghata temples.
- Devi Chowdhurani (2025) shot its first schedule in Purulia from late January 2024, including forest scenes in the Ajodhya Hills and their foothills.
- Many online claims about Purulia film locations are unsourced; this list includes only films with a published source naming Purulia.
The main Hirak Rajar Deshe shooting location is Joychandi Pahar, a cluster of bare, rocky hills on the edge of Raghunathpur in Purulia district, where Satyajit Ray filmed much of his 1980 fantasy. It is about 95 km by road from our cottages in the Ajodhya Hills. Purulia has drawn other filmmakers too, most of all Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who was born near Purulia town, and in recent years Hindi and Bengali productions have used its temples and forests. Here are the films we could trace to Purulia through published sources, and how to see their locations.
Where was Hirak Rajar Deshe shot?
Hirak Rajar Deshe, released on 19 December 1980, is Ray's satirical sequel to Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. Tapen Chatterjee and Rabi Ghosh return as the musicians Goopy and Bagha, Utpal Dutt plays the tyrant Hirak Raja and Soumitra Chatterjee the schoolteacher Udayan Pandit. It won National Film Awards for the best Bengali feature film, for Ray's music direction and for Anup Ghoshal's playback singing.
Much of it was filmed at Joy Chandi Pahar, also spelled Joychandi, according to a report in Anandabazar Patrika cited by Wikipedia, and travel writers and the hill's own tourism festival keep the link alive. The setting explains the choice: the hills rise as bare rock with only scattered patches of green, out of open fields, village ponds and red laterite tracks, a natural stage for a fantasy kingdom.
The connection is still celebrated locally. The 18th Joychandi Hill Tourism Festival, in December 2023, opened at Satyajit Ray Square in the foothills.
What can you see at Joychandi Pahar today?
Joychandi Pahar is about 2 km from Raghunathpur and has its own railway station, Joychandi Pahar, on the Adra–Asansol line, about 1.5 km from the hill. A long stairway, several hundred steps by most counts, climbs to temples of Chandi and Hanuman near the top.
On the way up you pass the shell of a two-storey semaphore tower, part of the British optical telegraph built between 1816 and 1830. The summit looks over fields, ponds, Raghunathpur and the railway. Mountaineering clubs and colleges run rock-climbing camps on the rock faces in winter; casual visitors should keep to the steps.
The Joychandi Pahar tourism festival runs each year from 28 December to 1 or 2 January, with cultural programmes in the afternoons and evenings and a crafts market. Small stalls at the foot of the hill have sold tea and snacks, but carry your own water for the climb.
Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Purulia
No filmmaker is more closely tied to Purulia than Buddhadeb Dasgupta (1944–2021), who was born at Anara, near Purulia town. In a 2020 interview with Scroll he said that he grew up in villages and small towns like Purulia, and that the images of his childhood kept returning in his films.
Uttara (2000) is set in a remote village in Purulia district, where a railway signalman and a gateman pass their days wrestling at a lonely flag-cabin, while a pastor runs a small church and masked dancers perform for the village. Based on a short story by Samaresh Basu, it won Dasgupta the Special Director award at the Venice Film Festival and the National Film Award for Best Direction. "The spot in Purulia which I used in Uttara was so unique," he told Scroll, adding that it had since been dug up for red soil. He also said: "In Purulia, my heroes were the Jhumur dancers whom you see in Uttara."
Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (A Tale of a Naughty Girl, 2002), based on a story by Prafulla Roy, follows Lati, a teenage girl who defies her mother's plans for her so that she can go back to school. ThePrint notes that it was shot in Dasgupta's birthplace, Purulia, and a review in The Hindu at the time called it "set in his favourite Purulia". It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. No source we found names the exact villages used in either film. For the folk songs Dasgupta loved, read our guide to Jhumur songs of Manbhum.
Was Lootera shot in Purulia?
Yes, in part. Vikramaditya Motwane's Lootera (2013), a 1950s period romance with Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha set partly in rural Bengal, was due to shoot its snow scenes in Dalhousie in January 2012. Heavy snowfall there forced a change of plan, and the producer told Bollywood Hungama that the snow scenes would wait while the rest of the film was shot in Purulia.
According to Wikipedia, citing a Times of India report of February 2012, scenes with Ranveer Singh, Sonakshi Sinha and Barun Chanda were filmed at the temples of Deulghata, the early brick towers on the Kangsabati, 44 km from the resort. The temples, and the others in our guide to the ancient temples of Purulia, are worth a visit for their own sake.
Devi Chowdhurani in the Ajodhya Hills
The most recent production we could confirm is Devi Chowdhurani (2025), Subhrajit Mitra's film of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel, with Srabanti Chatterjee and Prosenjit Chatterjee. After a day in north Kolkata, the crew moved to Purulia district on 28 January 2024 for the rest of its first schedule, and ETV Bharat reported in February that the Purulia shoot, with horse riding, sword fights and archery, had wrapped.
Wikipedia, citing Aajkaal, places scenes in the deep forest of the Ajodhya Hills and their foothills. The film was released on 26 September 2025. Ajodhya Hill Top is about 20 km from our cottages by road.
A note on film claims you will read online
Purulia's film history is often exaggerated on travel sites and social media, so we have kept to films with a published source naming Purulia. Some examples of claims we could not support:
- Pakhi Pahar in Hirak Rajar Deshe. At least one travel blog places the film at Pakhi Pahar, the "bird hill" near us. We found no reliable source for this, and the giant bird carvings the hill is known for today were only begun in 2008, so they are not what you would see in the film.
- Raghu Dakat (2025). Wikipedia, citing The Times of India, says parts of Dev's film were shot in Purulia in June 2025. We could not read the original report or find out where, so treat it as unconfirmed.
- Uncounted Dasgupta films. Dasgupta is often said to have set several films in Purulia, but only Uttara and Mondo Meyer Upakhyan are tied to the district in the sources we checked.
Planning a film-locations day
| Location | Film | Distance from the resort |
|---|---|---|
| Joychandi Pahar | Hirak Rajar Deshe (1980) | 95 km |
| Deulghata temples | Lootera (2013) | 44 km |
| Ajodhya Hills | Devi Chowdhurani (2025) | 20 km to Ajodhya Hill Top |
The Ajodhya Hills and Deulghata fit into one day from the resort, since the direct road to Deulghata crosses the plateau. Joychandi Pahar is better combined with Garh Panchkot and Baranti in the north of the district.
When you go, remember that these are living places, not sets. Ask before photographing people, keep music low at the temples and on the hill, and take your litter back with you. From our cottages at the foot of Matha Buru we can arrange a guide or a sightseeing cab on request; see Experiences for what we offer.
