Mumbay, Aug 03, 2008
Surinder Singh
NRI Los Angeles-based filmmaker, Jagmohan Mundhra
decided to hold his project to make a film on Sonia Gandhi because
she has neither said "yes or no" and requested to postpone
until election in next year.
In Sep. 2006, a Congress party lawyer, Abishek Singhvi,
who dispatched the legal notice to the producers, said the party
wanted to make it clear that the project had not been authorized
either by Gandhi or the party. It was the second time in less
than a decade that Gandhi and her political advisers had taken
legal action to prevent a film being made of her life. It also
highlighted the Gandhi family obsession with privacy, the political
sensitivity of her Italian heritage and Gandhi's general desire
to carefully stage-manage the family's public persona.
Mundhra is making a movie on the life of Sonia Gandhi,
the President of the Congress Party. Mundhra is basing the movie
on the biography of Sonia Gandhi written by Rasheed Kidwai, as
a part of a British government's program "Bollywood Initiative".
Earlier, Preity Zinta was reported to play Sonia. However, the
filmmaker found it better to sign Italian actress.
According to local media, Dr. Mundhra met Sonia
Gandhi and told her that he did not want to make a film about
Sonia as politician but like to:
- Her journey from Italy to UK and went to a school of languages
in Cambridge to learn English
- About the bakery in London where Rajiv used to clean the chimney
in the night
- Her early years with Rajiv that he had collected in the course
of his research.
- About two individuals from different backgrounds who fall
in love and make a life together"
According to one news paper, she was gracious and
wanted to know if biopics were made about living people. Dr. Mundhra
told her about several films on Nelson Mandela of a former President
of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative
democratic elections. Before his presidency he spent 27 years
in prison, much of it on Robben Island, on convictions for crimes
that included sabotage committed while he spearheaded the struggle
against apartheid....
Due to Mundra's sincerity, some experts think that she would
allow to make movie only after election. The reason may be that
they do not want other parties to think that Gandhi is using this
movie for her political gains. This is a green light to Mundra
to go ahead
