SINGAPORE, Dec 5: Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur says he is seriously considering making an India-China film after completing his latest film ‘Paani’ (water), expected to hit the screen early 2015.
“After Paani, I am seriously thinking of doing a film on India and China,” Kapur told.
“And if a good project comes up, I would love to do it. I have been offered to do an India-China film many times,” he said on the sidelines of the Asia TV Forum & Market conference being held here this week.
“I am just surprised that India and China have not made a film together at all,” he added.
Kapur also thought Singapore was the obvious choice to do an India-China film, pointing out that the people of the two countries shares a lot of mythologies such as Hanuman and the Monkey God.
In his address to the conference, Kapur highlighted Hanuman and Monkey God as many of the common elements among Indians and the Chinese people.
Elaborating on his choice of Singapore to shoot films, he said the city state would have to attract creative people with incentives to set up their workstations here.
But to attract a community of creative people, Singapore must offer more than financial incentives and make it comfortable for them to live here. Every nation in the world is offering incentives, some as high as 30 pc to 40 pc, to filmmakers, he said.
“We are not businessmen. We are not aspiring to be wealthy. We aspire to be creative,” he said.
Singapore with its diaspora mix is attractive for Indian and Chinese directors to operate from.
It would be difficult for an Indian director to be based in Shanghai or Beijing to do a film and a Chinese director to be working out of Mumbai, he pointed out.
He also highlighted Singapore’s proximity to Pinewood Iskandar studios in Southern Malaysian city of Johor Baru.
Kapur said he was still considering Singapore as a location to film/shoot part of ‘Paani’.
Shootingb of ‘Paani’ would start next June (2014), followed up by post-production work on the 3-D film. We are aiming to release it in early 2015, said Kapur.
“It has taken me 10 years from thinking, writing and raising money,” said Kapur, who has signed up USD 35 million funding for ‘Paani’ with Yash Raj Films.
Kapur said fee payment was being negotiated with an actress from the West to play the role opposite Indian actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who has already been signed.
Three of the five basic characters in the 120-minute film would likely be from the West.
He stressed that ‘Paani’ (water) would have an important message for the world as it remains a global issue. (PTI)
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