Entering the big league

Though he has roots in Kerala, Bejoy Nambiar created a name for himself as a filmmaker in the Hindi film industry. Bejoy, who debuted with Shaitan produced by director Anurag Kashyap in 2011, later captured the attention of film buffs with the Hindi-Tamil bilingual film David.

The director, who is all set to release his new film Wazir featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar, was at Alappuzha in Kerala last week in connection with the production of his new one hour tele-film for VTV.

This is the third time, he is in Kerala to capture the scenic beauty of the state for his project. “Though this yet-to-be titled film is a Hindi project, it demands the visuals of Alappuzha. This was what happened during the production of my second feature film David also.”

“A few scenes of that movie were also shot here in Kerala. Even before these two projects, I had shot a film completely here in the state and it was a 40-minute-film named as Rahu,” says Bejoy who prefers to speak in Malayalam to Keralites.

“Rahu is my only Malayalam film till date. It was in fact conceived as a festival film. But I could not send to fetes as it exceeds the duration limits fixed by the festival organisers. Rahu featuring Madhu sir and Thilakan sir was shot in 2008 and it was completely filmed in my ancestral house in Kannur. It was a period story set in 1950s and it was for this film I collaborated with Tamil cinematographer Madhi, who later cranked camera for my first feature film Shaithan,” says the director who is excited to release his new film Wazir in December.

Bejoy considers Wazir as the first major work in his film career. “It was a great experience to work with legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan and brilliant actor Farhan Akthar. This is for the first time, I am doing a film on another one’s script as it is scripted by Vidhu Vinod Chopra along with Abhijat Joshi. It was after watching my film David, they approached me to do this film, which is being produced under the banner of Vinod Chopra films,” says the director adding that it will be a completely different film when compared with his previous movies.

“This film mainly deals with the life of two characters portrayed by Amithabh Bachchan and Farhan. Though it comes under the genre of thriller, it is the mind play between these two characters,” he says.

It was with a silent short film starring Mohanlal, the director who considers the actor as his mentor, started his career as filmmaker. “When I was done with the screenplay of Reflections, a silent short film, I thought about casting Mohanlal sir in the lead role. That is a factor which forced me to call Lal sir. Though short film was not a popular medium at that time, he agreed to hear the script. Post script narration, he gave me the date. It is Lal sir who kick started my career,” says Bejoy who has already started the scripting of his dream project in Malayalam.

“Earlier I had done a script in Malayalam to do with Lal sir. It was during the production stage of my film Shaitan. But when I met Lal sir, he was completely busy with back to back projects. But he has promised that we would do a project in future. In fact that script was rewritten for my new one-hour tele film for VTV. Anyhow, I will be doing a film in Malayalam soon and the scripting work is progressing,” says the director, who does not want to miss Onam celebrations.

“From my childhood, we used to celebrate Onam at my house in Mumbai as it is the time of get together of my relatives, who are also settled in the same locality. But unfortunately, this Onam will be in studio as I will be busy with post-production of this new movie Wazir,” says Bejoy.