Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche’s third feature film is set to be refreshingly different. Unlike his two previous films – The Cup and Travellers and Magicians – Vara, meaning blessing or boon in Sanskrit, will have a cast of professional actors, some of whom are well-known Bollywood actors.
Based on the novel Blood and Tears by the celebrated Indian poet and novelist, Sunil Gan-gopadhyay, the film will be in Hindi medium. Some of the potential lead actors include Imran Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Shahana Goswami, Mamatha Bhukya, and Padmapriya Janakiraman.
To be shot either in Sri Lanka or South India, Vara explores the real-life ideals of understanding and compassion, sacrifice and selflessness. It celebrates the strength of women and explores a hierarchy of caste and creed.
Vara is about a beautiful young Indian temple dancer who, in love with a low-caste sculptor, puts both their lives at risk when she agrees to model for him in secret. The girl tries to save her unborn child at all cost in a small isolated, traditional village. The film will have several villagers caught up in a tangle of love and societal expectations. The story is interwoven with scenes of Indian classical dance.
With his usual sense of good humour, Rinpoche says that, produced in an obscure foreign language, the film could be boring and a commercial failure.
However, he claims that Vara is different. “I am very nervous because it’s very different,” he says. The subject for Vara includes a lot of complicated issues like the caste system, the Bharatanatyam, which is one of the most profound, deep, vast, and infinite dance that is very spiritual. The cast are not going to be his students, or those related to him, but Bollywood actors or some independent actors. He plans to meet the actors in Mumbai soon. “All these will make the film nerve breaking for me. I can’t use my Rinpoche’s tyranny,” he smiles. Rinpoche is, however, ready to take up the challenge for he has always been a fan of Bharatanatyam, Karnatak music, and Jaya Deva’s Gita Govinda, which is beautiful poetry.
Rinpoche says the film has no particular target audience or message for the viewers for he believes that giving away messages is arrogant. But he enjoys making films and telling stories. Anyone who is bored enough of watching such kind of films could make the audience, he jokes.
For Vara, Rinpoche will team up with the legendary cinematographer, Christopher Doyle. The two will be supported by an international crew of filmmakers from India, the United States, and Hong Kong, and a local crew of Sri Lankan production.
Although funding is still being sought, Rinpoche says there are several producers. The production team is spearheaded by the producer, Nanette Nelms, who has worked with well-respected directors, and the executive producer John Solomon, who, in his previous career, served as a vice-president of both Walt Disney Imagineering and Witt-Thomas Films.
Rinpoche and his team are looking for some kind of investment from everywhere, including Bhutan. “But make no mistake that this film is so obscure that it might not make a return of your capital,” he reminds fund raisers.
The budget for the film is tentatively worked out to about US$ 3 million.
Could the film mean paying some sort of tribute to India?
Rinpoche thinks for a moment and declares that his love for India and its culture is “quite deep”. “You can say that it’s a tribute to this resilient, vast, deep India and its culture,” he says. “I am trying to make one small aspect of India credible.”
Asked about his plan to produce another film on Bhutan, Rinpoche says “later” and gets ready for some melodious Chinese and Tibetan songs sung by his grandniece, who is currently in Bhutan to visit him. Rinpoche, in fact, has a story set in Bhutan, which is ready to be shot anytime. But he wants to take up the Vara challenge first.
Source: Bhutan Observer
Hello! lovely to hear about this film, do you know how I can get in touch with the producer or casting director?
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