Filmmaker’s next, an international project featuring Angira Dhar and an Iranian actress, will be shot across Asia and Europe
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 22, 2018)

Even as Anurag Kashyap gears up for the release of the romantic drama, Manmarziyaan, featuring Abhishek Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal, Mirror has learnt that the filmmaker’s next will be an international film, Talagh, inspired by a true-life story. It is the emotional journey of two women from two different parts of the world. He has already signed Angira Dhar, earlier seen in Ronnie Screwvala’s Love Per Square Foot opposite Vicky, for one of the leading roles and they are scouting for an Iranian actress for the other one. The supporting cast will be German.

Confirming the news, Anurag informed that the film is in German, Dari and Pashto and should roll towards the end of 2019 or in early 2020. “It will be filmed in several countries, some impossible to shoot in, so we have to figure out how to pull it off,” says Anurag, who begins his recce after he’s done with his present commitments. “It’ll be done in gaps between things. There is a lot I have to make time for, including taking the same journey across Asia and Europe as these two women, both physically and emotionally, before it goes on the floors,” admits Anurag, adding that it is the story that pulled him in. “I chose it before it became a script.”

It is written by Khatera Khan and Kathrin Wilkes and will be produced by Nurhan Sekerci, who has co-produced the German film In The Fade, which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Film in the Foreign Language category this year, with Anurag’s friend Fatih Akin, who also directed the film. “Fatih and I have been talking about a collaboration for a long time. Meanwhile Khatera reached out to me with this script. I always wanted to do this one film, and have been part of its development,” he avers.

Prod him on his choice of Angira and he reasons that she fit the part perfectly and responded well to the script. “I guess the writers and producers also saw Love Per Square Foot, chose her and took on the responsibility to train her. She was their first choice and I totally agreed with them,” he says, pointing out that the actress also resembles the person she is playing. “She will live in Hamburg, work on the languages and meet the real people it’s based on.” Anurag was in the German city recently to visit a writing lab, get a feel of the place and its migrant communities.