Bobby Bedi, one of India’s most successful film producers, has announced plans for a strong multinational production, ranging from dance documentaries to soaring fantasies.
Speaking at a private event on the sidelines of the International Film Festival of India in Goa, Bedi spoke about the story of a Spanish dancer who visited India in the 1980s and found his form and identity through fusion with flamenco. He introduced “Mudras” depicting his journey. Bharat Natyam and Kathakali. More than 20 years later, the woman’s daughter takes a similar journey, but with a very different outcome.
Currently in post-production, the feature-length documentary is produced by Bedi and Anna Saura through Bedi’s Contentflow studio and co-directed by Bedi and Maria Salgado. Bedi described the film as “a story of two women exploring dance, exploring and discovering themselves, traveling across two countries, two cultures and two generations.”
The company is in pre-production on “Bandit Queen MP,” a title based on “Bandit Queen,” one of Bedi’s biggest early career successes. The film tells the story of Phoolan Devi, a woman who is released from prison for 12 years, succeeds against all odds to become a member of parliament, campaigns for greater representation for women, and is assassinated. It is.
“Obviously, this was set up at a time when the country wasn’t ready. [women’s political representation]However, this is because the Congress has allotted seats to women,” Bedi said. “I hope this film will be meaningful to people who want to break through the glass ceilings that exist in various parts of their lives.”
Bedi pitched it simply as a “gender bender” and introduced her pre-production feature film Lara and Poppy, about a transsexual man and a transsexual woman who become lovers. “Will this world allow two transgender people to love and live?” Bedi said.
Ambitious in a different way is ‘Nasruddin Hoja’, a project conceived by Bedi, Rami Malek and multi-Oscar-winning musician AR Rahman. The film project, which has been in development for a year now, follows the musical journey of a mysterious 13th-century figure renowned for his wit and wisdom from Turkey to China, through the era of the Crusades and Mongol invasions. It is. The project is expected to have a budget of more than $20 million and is being produced in partnership with VFX and equipment giant Technicolor.
It uses a combination of live-action filming in desert landscapes, with the rest of the environments and backgrounds created digitally. Technicolor does the entire pre-visualization of the film.
The film “Artist & Assassin”, currently in development and scheduled to be screened at the Asia Television Forum in Singapore next month, tells the story of an artist who finds his art, love and life in the Mexican art world.
Structured as a Spanish-Indian co-production, the film depicts the journey of a young deaf Indian painter who goes to Mexico in the 1950s to train with David Seguiros, and who eventually meets Frida. – Kahlo and Diego Rivera have a rocky relationship and become friends during Leon Trotsky’s assassination.
Three-wheeled real-time thriller ‘Auto Bhagwan’ is also in the development stage. The three wheels refer to an autorickshaw driver who takes three passengers and goes on three adventures over the course of two hours in the movie.
Mansoor will be Bedi’s first production venture in Saudi Arabia. While admitting that it is difficult to know which films will do well in this rapidly developing market, Bedi said that the film is an Arabic version of his catalog title ‘Maqbool’ and that the film itself is Indian William Shakespeare’s retelling. Stage play “Macbeth”.
Bedi is teaming up with Rahman again to develop the musical fantasy ‘The Flowering Tree’. Showman claims it’s “as relevant today as ‘Avatar’ was then.” It is loosely based on a poem by AK Ramunajam about a girl who temporarily transforms into a tree in order to harvest and sell flowers to feed her family. “This story is also about gender, discrimination and the environment,” Bedi said.
Bedi’s credits include Shekhar Kapur’s global breakthrough film Bandit Queen (1994), Deepa Mehta’s controversial Fire (1996), and the romantic drama starring Rani Mukerji. It includes some of the landmark titles of Indian cinema such as ‘Saathiya’ (2002) and Vishal. Bhardwaj’s 2003 “Maqbool”, Stanley Tong’s Jackie Chan starrer “The Myth” (2005) and Gurvinder Singh’s Rotterdam title “Crescent Night” (2002).
This year, Bedi was also recognized as the host of a new content marketplace supported by Frames.
