Bengali cinemas latest superstar,Dev wants to grow out of his macho image by portraying deglamourised roles with new-age directors. After Uttam Kumar and Prosenjit,Dev is the only star who commands as big mass following,especially among the youth who still swear by his smash hits like Challenge and Paran Jai Jalia Re. The actor,famed for his dancing skill and tall lithe frame,admits that he wants to be remembered as a consummate actor too. As an actor I have to be ready for both commercial and serious roles, said Dev. He insists that he wants to maintain a balance between walking the commercial world and the world of arthouse cinema. I want to work with directors like Aparna Sen,Rituparno Ghosh and Buddhadeb Dasgupta and also want to consolidate my position in commercial films and work with directors Raj Chakraborty,Haranath Chakraborty,Prabhat Roy,Swapan Saha and others, he said. In a more realistic film Le Chakka,Dev said that he trained in the typical north Kolkata style of speaking for days. He also shot scenes without make-up for the film based on cricket rivalry between two localities. It is so unlike my previous films and my screen presence is not required in every frame and shot. Here the lead role is more tailored to the script and not the other way round, Dev explained.He said that his character bore resemblance to the role of his idol Uttam Kumar in a popular family entertainer loosely based on a football rivalry between two areas in the 70s. Insisting that more preparation is not necessarily required to essay deglam,grounded characters,Dev said,The actor has to switch effortlessly from one kind of role to another and come out of the stereotypes. This is the reason why he agreed to do cameo roles in arthouse movies like Ekti Tarar Khonje and Jackpot directed by Aniruddha Roychudhury and Kaushik Ganguly respectively.Asked about any plan to try his luck in Hindi films,Dev,who grew up watching Aamir Khan movies and had assisted on Abbas-Mustans Taarzan: The Wonder Car,said that he wants to consolidate his position in Tollywood and work towards improving himself as an actor. Shaji N. Karun to make docu-film on M. F. HusainNational award-winning filmmaker Shaji N Karun is planning to make a docu-film on renowned painter M.F. Husain,who recently gave up Indian citizenship to become a citizen of Qatar. According to Shaji,he had a telephonic discussion with Husain some time back and the artist accepted the proposal wholeheartedly. The film is titled In Quest Of Mother and the work is to start in October.Husains response to the idea was,I am honoured by you doing a film on me, said Shaji. For me,this is an attempt from an artistes side to bring back an acclaimed master like Husain to his motherland. My understanding is that Husain is interested to come back to India,but there is no sincere efforts from the side of the government to make it possible, he added. Through the title,Shaji seeks to convey a wide range of meanings. Husain lost his mother when he was just a one-and-half-years old. Later in his life,after achieving fame and glory,he had to flee his motherland. The film would focus the universal theme of the relationship between a mother and a child. My perception is that Husain has sought to explore the concept of mother even in his works like Saraswathy,which sparked controversy in the country for portrayal of the goddess in nude, Shaji,an internationally-known director and cinematographer,said. The controversy was the result of misinterpretation of the artists work by a minority of Indian people. Husain had only exercised his freedom of expression as any other artist. This sort of a thing shouldnt have happened in a country of cultural diversity like India, Shaji said. I have always found him as a person with whom I could communicate easily. He has appreciated my films like Vanaprastham,when it was screened in Mumbai, he added.According to the filmmaker,Husain is now engaged in a work commissioned by the Qatar royal house. This is a major artistic attempt on a bigger canvas to explore the history of the world and the Arab involvement with an Indian element infused in it. The film,which unfolds through the interpretation of Husains paintings,will also attempt to incorporated perspectives of various people related to Husains life including Madhuri Dixit,Vidya Balan and many others.Husain has appreciated this approach. He would be going to London soon and would be back in Qatar by October. In the meantime,I will be doing the research,meeting poeople and structuring the work, Shaji added.
