Kudos for Raincoat
by: Amit Roy
- telegraphindia.com
Indian directors are set to make a big impact at the London Film Festival, with Shyam Benegal’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero being one of the highlights. “This is a very important film, a three-and-three-quarter hour historical epic,” said the British Film Institute’s Cary Rajinder Sawhney, who helped choose most of the Indian entries.
Sawhney also spoke highly of Raincoat, made by the “celebrated Bengali director Rituparno Ghosh”, which stars the ubiquitous Aishwarya Rai and Ajay Devgan who give “virtuoso performances as two fated lovers”.
Sawhney described it as “an intense romantic drama with Chekovian hues”.
“These performances show that actors and actresses from Bollywood are more than able to match Hollywood,” observed Sawhney.
Now that Manmohan Singh and Tony Blair agreed in their recent joint declaration that there should be increased co-operation in the field of film production, there will be added interest in a conference on Indo-British collaborations in making movies organised by the Commonwealth Business Forum in London on October 29.
Sawhney, who is to chair the conference, said: “Subhash Ghai, Mira Nair, Shyam Benegal and others coming to the film festival will be there.”
