Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 28, 2017)

While Amole Gupte is busy promoting his one-of-its-kind kids action film, Sniff, and gearing up to direct the Saina Nehwal biopic with Shraddha Kapoor, Mirror has learnt that the 54-year-old filmmaker has made another 32-minute film, Return Of One Idiot, in early 2017 around the plight of senior citizens. He plans to partner with multiplexes and screen it at around 6,000 schools and educational institutions.

“In 2012, I had made One Idiot on the importance of saving and investments through a character, who is treated as an idiot, but turns out to be a multi-millionaire. I screened it at around 3,000 educational institutions and around the time, visited seven old age homes and was moved by the denizens there, who had been deserted by their children. I sat there holding their hands, listening to their stories and decided to make this film to create empathy and sensitization,” informs Amole.

The film revolves around Bhargava ‘Bugs’ Krishna, who’d earlier worked with him in One Idiot and the 2014 sports drama Hawaa Hawaai, who is looking for his best friend’s abandoned mother. “While researching the film, I met some cabbies whose children had abandoned them to work even when they were old and incorporated their stories into the film too,” says Amole and adds, “I live with my mother and mother-in-law and we are one happy family. I’m lucky to have them with me.”