'Monsoon Wedding' musical, to enter rehearsals soon

New Delhi, June 26 (IANS) US-based Indian filmmaker Mira Nair's musical adaptation of her 2001 super hit "Monsoon Wedding" will begin rehearsals in September, while she plans to shoot her next film in Uganda in 2014.

Set in the national capital, "Monsoon Wedding", produced under the banner of Mirabai Films, revolved around a typical Punjabi wedding laced with a hefty dose of emotion and drama.

"I am doing 'Monsoon Wedding' on Broadway. That's what I am doing now. We have about seven or eight songs done out of the 11. We also have the book written and we will enter rehearsals in September in New York," the 55-year-old said.

The award-winning director started her career with documentaries and ventured into feature films with 1988 movie "Salaam Bombay!", which won several awards and even got an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

She is known for making films like "Mississippi Masala", "Vanity Fair", "Amelia" and "The Namesake". Her most recent offering was "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", which had a mix cast that included Britain-based Pakistani origin actor Riz Ahmed in the lead along with Hollywood actors Kate Hudson and Liev Schreiber and Bollywood veterans Om Puri and Shabana Azmi.

Based on Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid's novel of the same name, "The Reluctant..." is about a young man chasing corporate success on Wall Street and struggling between his American dream, a hostage crisis and the enduring call of his family's homeland.

Nair has also directed a segment in the upcoming film "Words With Gods". Her segment is called "God Room" featuring Bollywood actors Tanuja, Ram Kapoor, Richa Chadda, Raj Kumar Yadav and Vinay Pathak.

The script for the film has been written by Bollywood director Zoya Akhtar and the story revolves around a rich family arguing over where the prayer room should be.

Meawhile, Nair has been roped in to direct a Ugandan film based on the real story of an eight-year-old girl, Phiona Mutesi, from the slums who became one of the finest chess players, taking on the grandmasters.

"It's a true story, I have just signed the deal for the film. I am starting to research and we will shoot next year. The movie will be filmed in Uganda," the director told IANS while she was here to promote "The Reluctant Fundamentalist".

Nair praised the girl saying, she is "amazing, very modest and quiet".

"I have met the girl. If you see where she has come from and what she has achieved, entirely through the dint of her own mind, it is very amazing. But she is also very modest, she is very quiet, and she is not easy to get to know in a way. I am looking forward to know her better, I have just met her once," said the acclaimed filmmaker.

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Monsoon Wedding