FARHAN’S SPORTS FILM NOT A BIOPIC

After Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, the prolific Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is all set to direct another sports film with Farhan Akhtar, though this time it’s won’t be a biopic. Reveals Rakeysh, “It is a fictional love story, my first contemporary love story scripted by Anjum Rajabali.”

While Farhan plays the male lead, the search for the female lead is on and she could be a newcomer or an established actress.

“I would never sign any actor, male or female, for the star value that it will bring to the project. It’s always the character first, the actor later,” says Rakeysh who is all set to release his new directorial venture Mere Pyare Prime Minister on 8 March. Rakeysh describes it as a love letter to India’s downtrodden. “Do you know, a majority of the rape incidents happen in rural India while women go out in the open to defecate. If we could make in- house toilets available to women in the heartland of India think how steeply crimes against women would fall.”

The filmmaker, whose Rang De Basanti and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag would be counted among the most influential Hindi films of contemporary India, hopes to continue making films that break the glass ceiling.

“To me, every film that I make must have something to say that is relevant to our society. I cannot make mere entertainers. At least, not the ones that do not speak to the audience,” says Rakeysh.