|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Canada-based Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta is set to return to India to shoot her first Punjabi film, Heaven On Earth, which chronicles the life of Amandeep, a victim of domestic violence in Toronto. But no comparisons with the Aishwarya Rai-starrer Provoked please. "No it’s not Provoked, please!" Mehta told this reporter from Toronto. Provoked, released last year, featured Aishwarya Rai as the London-based battered wife Kiranjit Ahluwalia. "Just as no two love stories are the same, no two instances of domestic violence can be the same. I had filmed Amandeep’s harrowing story in a documentary last year. Her story is the story of so many immigrant wives who suffer domestic indignity in an alien land and culture with no family or friends to support them," she said. "In the documentary, I had got the children of battered wives to interview their mothers on web cams. If I had done it I’d have never asked questions like, ‘Mom, how did it feel when dad hit you on your stomach when you were expecting me?’" A major chunk of her start-to-finish Heaven On Earth will be shot in Ludhiana. The film will be a synthesis of the very real and the surreal. "Last year, I watched this hugely fascinating play Naag Mandala by Girish Karnard where a tortured woman withdraws into a fantasy world and sees her tormentor as a snake. My film will incorporate the fantasy elements from Girish’s play. But finally it would be the wife Amandeep called Chand in my film, and her story." Amandeep, who was a close part of Mehta’s documentary, will be collaborating on the film. "But she won’t play the lead. I’ve already thought of a Punjabi Bollywood actress whom I want for the part." NRI theatre actor Vrajendra, who has never done cinema before, will play the husband. Shooting for Heaven On Earth begins from October 20 in Toronto. Why Punjabi? "Because that’s the language to which the film belongs. If Water could be accepted worldwide in Hindi, why not Heaven On Earth in Punjabi? My international distributors seem very happy." So does Mehta. — IANS
|
||
|
|
||
