Vishal Bhardwaj film to be shot in Dooars and Darjeeling

Vishal Bhardwaj’s next film will be shot in north Bengal.

The director of Bollywood blockbusters Maqbool and Omkara arrived here today, but remained tight-lipped about his new project.

“Julia. That’s the name of the film,” was the only scrap of information he agreed to share.

“There is nothing I can tell you as of now,” Bhardwaj added, when prodded about the story. “I have come here to check out the locations.”

The film is expected to be shot in the Dooars and the Darjeeling hills in January next year, the director said. He will be in the region till the 14th of this month, putting up base in Chalsa in the Dooars.

Asked why he chose north Bengal, all Bhardwaj said was: “The script requires this kind of location.”

Julia will be the third Bollywood film to be shot in the region in recent times, following in the footsteps of Parineeta with its scenes on the toy train and Main Hoon Na, which brought Darjeeling to the silver screen.

Though Bhardwaj refused to confirm it, big names from Hollywood and Bollywood — Kill Bill star Uma Thurman and Hrithik Roshan, to name a few — have already been linked with the new film, which will based on the life of actress Nadira. The first sophisticated vamp of Bollywood died in February last year.

However, the director did reveal that Julia would be co-written by Matthew Robbins, who has worked on Hollywood productions like The Sugarland Express and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Robbins accompanied Bhardwaj to Bagdogra today. He did the script for Blood Brothers, Bhardwaj’s recent 11-minute film with Siddharth (who played Karan Singhania in Rang De Basanti) and Ayesha Takia as part of Mira Nair’s series on HIV/AIDS.

The director is credited with bringing Shakespeare to Bollywood with his adaptations of Macbeth (Maqbool) and Othello (Omkara).

“He is indeed the greatest writer of all times,” Bhardwaj said about the bard.

Bhardwaj added that he has not had his fill of Shakespeare and may make adaptations of other works of the Elizebethan dramatist, which could even be comedies.

Bhardwaj may have begun his career as a music-director (in Gulzar’s Maachis in 1996), but filmmaking, he says, is his first-love. Asked how he has managed to juggle between the two demanding roles, he said: “They came to me at different times and never clashed, which is why it has not been too much of a problem.”

Source: The Telegraph