Dreaming of Midnight’s Children

Filmmaker Deepa Mehta,who is in the Capital for the Pravasi Film Festival,says she will begin shooting her mammoth project,the adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children,in September. “I have already finalised a few cast members that include Seema Biswas,Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das,” she says. Mehta has co-written the script with Rushdie. “I want to shoot the film in India,” she said. “Otherwise,sets would be built in the US .”

At the screening of her film Earth (1998) at the India Habitat Centre,Mehta seemed delighted with the success of Cook ing With Stella,which was directed by her younger brother Dilip and co-written by the two of them. “The film has been a gala affair. It has been in competition at festivals in Monte Carlo,Marbella,Toronto and Sao Paolo,” she says. “As much as I would love to say it is my film,this is entirely Dilip’s baby. It was his story which as an elder sister I decided to pitch in for.” It was at her insistence that Dilip roped in Biswas and Shreya Saran for the project.

Mehta is also eager to start her much delayed project Komagata Maru. The shoot is a couple of years away but the cast is in place. “We start shooting only in 2013 and are thinking of a release in 2014. It will have Akshay Kumar in the lead with other Canadian actors,” says Mehta. For,the film is a co-production by Kumar’s Hari Om Entertainment and Hamilton-Mehta productions.