After receiving appreciation on the digital platform for the short film "Kahaanibaaz", director Sandeep A. Varma is working on his international short film "The Disguise".
On how he bagged the project, Varma told IANS here: "During one of the international screenings of my debut film 'Manjunath', (officials of) one of the British production houses watched the film and contacted me. It is an international project where not only actors, but also crew members are from across the world like Spain, Romania, Italy.
"Working with an international crew has given me an idea of their high professionalism. I am so impressed by how dedicated and accurate they are with their craft."
"The Disguise" will be a 30-minute short film. It will go to various foreign film festivals, and based on its response, producer Riya Mukherjee may even make it a feature film.
The film features international actors like Naomi Willow, Adriana Grigoriev, Zed Josef and Jennifer Scott Malden.
"We finished filming in London last month. Now we are in the post-production. One of the reasons why I chose London is that is a cosmopolitan city where people come and live from across the globe -- whether it is India, other Asian countries or Africans," said the director.
"The core idea of the story is that as an individual when you start living in a new country, how much do you assimilate to become a dweller of London and how much do you retain of your roots. In the story, I have tried to explore that conflict," Varma added.
Varma began his Bollywood career with "Manjunath" in 2014. As the film did not fetch promising numbers at the box office, he did not make any more feature films after it.
"After the release of 'Manjunath', many producers came to me with story ideas of biopics, where the protagonist died struggling through his life. And as a storyteller, I had a tough time to make people understand that making a biopic on underdogs is not the mission of my life," quipped Sandeep.
"Since the film did not do well at the box office and that's the only language the film fraternity understands, I decided to make my next film if only I find a good story and get a star on-board to pull the audience in the theatre."
Therefore, Varma started making short films on topics that hold strong relevance in the current times.
In 2016, Sandeep made a short film "The Virgins", featuring Priya Bajpayee. It had crossed around 13 million views.
"That changed things around and people started showing interest in my short films. For me, it is about storytelling. So again I directed 'Kahaanibaaz', which is a thriller and worked with a celebrated actor like Ashish Vidyarthi," he said.
Apart from "The Disguise", Varma is working on a new feature film that he said he will "hopefully announce soon".
--IANS
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