Mountain of the Moon) (released as Mountains of the Moon in the United States)[7] is a 2013 Indian Bengali-language action-adventure film based on Chander Pahar by Bengali novelist Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, directed by Kamaleshwar Mukherjee and produced by Mahendra Soni and Shrikant Mohta under the banner of their production house Shree Venkatesh Films.

This is the first collaboration between Dev and Mukherjee, the latter having made only two films before: Uro Chithi and Meghe Dhaka Tara.It was dream project of Late Filmmaker Tarun Majumdar.

Shankar Ray Choudhuri is a 20-year-old man, recently completed his First Arts graduation and about to take up a job in a jute mill, a prospect he absolutely loathes.

He wants to follow the footsteps of famous explorers like Livingstone, Mungo Park, Marco Polo, all of whom he has read about and idolizes.

Alavarez tells him of his exploits and adventures, how he and his companion Jim Carter had braved deep jungles and mountains of Richtersveld to find the largest diamond mine.

With great difficulty, he gets out, marking his way with "pebbles" and taking some back with him as a memento, not knowing each is an uncut diamond.

He finds the remains of the Italian explorer, Attilio Gatti, and learns that the cave he found earlier was the diamond mine.

This time around, Kamaleswarda shot the early years of Shankar's life and for that, I had to gain few kilos to look like a typical bhodro-Bangali chhele.

But he even compared the project to a "double-edged sword" as he realised the challenges while looking for locations in South Africa for a month.

"[13] He added that he was lucky enough as Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, author of Chander Pahar, had such a fertile imagination that, without having visited Africa, he had a clear idea about the landscape.

[14] A source close to the Chander Pahar unit revealed that the production house wanted a big star to play Shankar, the adventurer protagonist.

But he was asked to lose weight because, in the latter part of the film, Shankar fights with lions, walks through jungles and mountains, and almost starves.

He even has a dialogue in Bengali, where he tells Shankar, "Ishwar Tomar Mongol Korun" (meaning, God Bless You).

[16] Kamaleshwar Mukherjee said that he was sending a translated version of the script to the actors and added that, they were so professional that they had already read up about Chander Pahar on the Internet.

[10] Before the filming, Kamaleshwar Mukherjee threw a party on 31 March 2013 at Kolkata, much before 20 April, the day when shooting was scheduled to start.

Upon questioning, he said, "Before the shooting of the film which contains a large number of risks, team Chander Pahar wanted a party with the presence of all the crew and artists.

"[10] The novel Chander Pahar has a story where the protagonist Shankar has a face-to-face experience with Africa's most deadliest snake, Black mamba.

Director Kamaleshwar Mukherjee said that the local people were telling the pre-production team how the Black mamba had bitten at least someone of the crew of a film in 80% of shooting cases.

Mukherjee added that the largest risk in this sequence will be of the cinematographer, Soumik Haldar, who confidently said that he will be positively doing his work since he had already decided to do that.

Abhishek Daga, the executive producer said that carbolic acid will be used where the shooting will take place, and everyone will wear ankle-high boots.

[12] Director Kamaleshwar Mukherjee said, "Near Johannesburg and the province of Mpumalanga, there are forests, streams and game parks that are quite spectacular, which would be great on screen.

Once we'd decided on the locations in and around Kruger National Park, my directorial team set out for the mountains of Drakensberg and the deserts of Kalahari.

Producer Shrikant Mohta stated the reason that Debojyoti's music didn't quite suit the film well and that's why they were bound to approach Indraadip.

All lyrics are written by Srijato; all music is composed by Indraadip DasguptaThough by early 2013, the production house had yet not released any official poster of Chander Pahar, a large number of unofficial posters designed by graphic designers were promoted in social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, featuring only Dev in the foreground and background somewhat similar to the official cover art of the novel.

"[32] Ei Samay wrote "Most of all (though the book and film are different mediums) fictional Shankar doesn't get bogged down in reality.

But buddy, Kamaleswar, I felt a greater pride to be part of this Bong industry after watching Chander Pahar.

If you wait to watch it on the small screen or DVD, it would be like listening to a live Ravi Shankar on a cheap tape recorder.

"[35] The Washington Post wrote "Director Kamaleswar Mukherjee shot the film primarily in South Africa, and the vistas and animals are breathtaking.

The source material ends up shoehorned between splashy images of springboks and hippos, and any gaps are filled with CGI.

The first day collection of Chander Pahar in West Bengal is about ₹90 lakh (equivalent to ₹1.5 crore or US$180,000 in 2023) by breaking the previous highest records of Bengali film industry.