Thursday, May 3, 2007

Rahul Bose's Second Directorial Venture


If all goes well, Rahul Bose will be directing his second feature film four years after Everybody Says I'm Fine.

The film will be a screen adaptation of Mohsin Hamid's 2000 debut novel Moth Smoke. Says Rahul, "It's too early to talk about the film. I'm co-writing the screenplay with a writer in Los Angeles – a very close friend of mine Satish Menon, and Nishar Modi.

The final draft will be ready by May 15. One international and two Indian producers have shown interest in the project. But, I wouldn't like to name them now. There are many a slips between the cup and the lip."

At the moment Rahul has paid for the filming rights of Moth Smoke from his own pocket. "My three producers were willing to pool in the money to buy the rights. But, I wasn't comfortable with that deal. I'd like to have full creative control over the project," he says.

What Rahul loved about the book is that it's both about love and hatred.

He explains, "It's a love and hate triangle, incredibly plausible on both levels. The challenge is to take the micro aspect of the novel to the macro level on screen. The exuberance of Everybody Says I'm Fine will be curbed."

Getting the rights of the book wasn't really a problem in spite of it being by a Pakistani novelist. Commenting about his long absence from filmmaking, Rahul says, "Ideally I'd have loved to direct another film much earlier. Perversely, I've taken that time to do the maximum number of films including the unreleased Kaal Purush, Anuronan, The Whisperers, Before The Rains and now Aparna Sen's The Japanese Wife. I've never done so many films before."

Rahul Bose is currently shooting for Aparna Sen's The Japanese Wife in Kolkata. "It's been the toughest role of my career. The whole notion of doing something I've never done before is scary. The layers in the character are hardly visible. And, I can't let the character's confusions show on screen. It's very international in texture. It's more of Latin-American flavour. Like some of Satyajit Ray's film, The Japanese Wife belongs to world cinema," says Rahul.

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