The Iranian filmmaker’s second Hindi project is a light-hearted story; will take off next year
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 28, 2019)

Last year, acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi made his Hindi film debut with Beyond the Clouds, which also marked the acting debut of Shahid Kapoor’s brother, Ishaan Khatter, in the role of a street hustler and drug dealer. It also featured cinematographer KU Mohanan’s daughter, Malavika Mohanan.

Now, Mirror has learnt that Majidi is returning to India for his next film. A light-hearted human-interest Hindi film, it is based on true events, and will be produced by Shareen Mantri Kedia and Kishor Arora. A source close to the development informs, “It’s a story that Majidi came across on his previous trips to India and has already started scripting the film. It revolves around a male protagonist in the age group of 25-30 years, is set in a small town and will go on the floors in the first half of 2020. Majidi will first start shooting for his next Iranian film after which he will begin recce and casting for the Indian film.”

Earlier, the producers and Majidi had announced a film titled Gold Mine as their second collaboration, but the source reveals that the filmmaker intends to start on the untitled film before he revisits Gold Mine. Meanwhile, Kedia and Arora are to take Pa Ranjith’s next, which is based on the life of revolutionary leader Birsa Munda, on the floors.

Kedia confirmed the news but refused to divulge further details. 

BOMBAY TIMES (February 15, 2018)

Renowned Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi’s Beyond The Clouds, touted to be one of the most anticipated films of 2018, will release in India and internationally on April 20. The movie is set in India and its trailer has already received a warm response from film industry folks and the audience.

Talking about the change in the release plans, Sujay Kutty, Business Head, Zee Studios, says, “To ensure that we create a single-release window across the globe for a movie of this stature, from such a respected filmmaker, it was but natural to have a date that works across the globe. This film has many firsts for us to be proud of — an all-India team under Mr Majidi’s leadership, a platform for two brilliant debutants (Ishaan Khattar and South actress Malavika Mohanan, who is marking her debut in Bollywood) and an Indian story showcased by a legendary artiste.”

Speaking about the development, producer Shareen Mantri Kedia of Namah Pictures says, “This film demanded a worldwide release, given the excitement for Mr Majidi’s content across the globe. He is a visionary, whose emotional connectivity and narrative transcends the boundaries of language.”

Producer Kishor Arora, also from the banner, adds, “Majid Majidi’s films are enjoyed in India as well as internationally. So, we’re celebrating this unique global endeavour with a simultaneous worldwide release. It will be a treat for all his fans across the globe and we are glad to make it happen.”

Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 14, 2017)

On Friday night, acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi walked the red carpet at the 61st BFI London Film Festival with his lead pair, debutant actor Ishaan Khattar and Malayalam actress Malavika Mohanan, for the world premiere of his Indian drama, Beyond The Clouds.

The trio, along with two-time Academy Award-winning composer, A R Rahman, and producers Shareen Mantri Kedia and Kishor Arora, have been busy interacting with the international media since they arrived on Thursday, with Majidi being hailed as “festival royalty”. The film, which marks Majidi’s debut in Indian cinema, is not only premiering at the festival but is also a part of the prestigious Official Competition Category, the results of which will be announced on October 15. The team will spend the weekend at the festival and is expected to return to the Bay next week.

Beyond the Clouds, a Hindi-English-Tamil trilingual, was shot in India earlier this year and dwells on the themes of love, life and human relationships through the eyes of a Mumbai-based sibling pair. It is set to release in Hindi and Tamil, among other languages.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 4, 2017)

Mid-day goes on a Yari Road set with Iranian maestro Majid Majidi, who’s here to make his first Indian film
Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; March 5, 2017)

Supple belly, a thick moustache, sitting in a make-shift tent, gently caressing religious beads between his fingers, this calm, soft-spoken gentleman could pass for any other genial desi Uncleji in Versova. And since we’ve driven down serpentine, narrow gullies of Yari Road — arguably the armpit of Mumbai, but very much the heart of Bollywood — good chances are he’s a filmmaker.

Everyone on Yari Road is a filmmaker, arent they? An open space off Versova Beach has been taken over by metal roads with white cloths fluttering. It is a film set all right. But business as usual. Nobody really disturbs a film shoot in these parts. It could be for anything feature.

Except, this is slightly more historic than that. The genial man before me with a zen-like aura around him, is arguably the world’s most acclaimed filmmaker, the Iranian Majid Majidi, 58, to be making his first film in Hindi, and partly in English — both languages he doesn’t speak. I can spot a few familiar Persian words while chatting with him through his translator Jawaid. Beyond the Clouds, produced by Indian companies, Zee and Eyecandy Films, has an all-desi cast and crew.

Majidi has essentially recreated a dhobi ghat (an open-air laundromat) in Andheri to finish off remaining portions of a sequence he shot at Mahalaxmi’s Dhobi Ghat. While there isn’t much buzz on this Versova film set, the excitement in the local press, in particular, has been palpable. Only a few weeks ago, Majidi had held the ‘mahurat’ shot of this film with Ishaan Khattar (actor Shahid Kapoor’s half-brother), who makes his debut with the Persian maestro. Bollywood star Deepika Padukone had expressed an interest in the  film. She’d done a ‘look test’ for the female lead’s part, images of which had leaked online. It didn’t quite work out for Padukone. She’s already working on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmavati. Majidi prefers his actors to be ideally present throughout the film’s shoot, and not for their portions before the camera.

Investigating further on Majidi’s method, I realise, he doesn’t write a script, and then recce for locations. It’s the other way round. He visits locations and hopes a script will emerge! Shareen Mantri Kedia, the producer on the set, tells me, “Majidi has been coming to India for about two and half years. We’ve taken him to various parts of the country. Eventually, he settled on Mumbai, and through places he went, he found a story to tell.”

The filmmaker, who burst onto the international scene with his phenomenal debut, Children Of Heaven — that, I reckon, unfairly lost out to Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful for the best foreign film Oscar in 1998 — is a humanist filmmaker. He represents the best of Iranian contemporary cinema, that’s rich in realism, poetry, and finely under-stated, allegorical storytelling, involving lives, mainly of the marginalised, and the under-class.

Ever since Children Of Heaven, Majidi’s films have been staple fare at top film festivals, besides living rooms of film buffs. Much in line with a full constellation of star-directors from Iran — right from Majidi’s mentor of sorts, Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Kandahar), now his daughter Samira (Blackboards); late Abbas Kiorastami (Close- Up); Jafar Panahi (Taxi); Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)… It’s an astoundingly growing list of world-class talent from a country that supposedly lives behind an iron curtain.

Majidi recalls, “Until people began to watch films from Iran, they felt it was a harsh place. Their views changed drastically once these pictures were screened.”

He ascribes the rise of the Iranian New Wave in cinema to the advent of the Iranian Revolution (1979), when the US-backed Shah of Iran was thrown out. Chronologically speaking, he may be right. But Joe-public really took notice of Iranian movies across the world only in the mid to late '90s. Majidi agrees. It’s around the same time that he and several other top directors stormed the global scene. The last time I watched a Majidi film on the big screen (The Song Of Sparrows) was at the Berlinale in 2008. The film itself, although lovely and lyrical no doubt, was very predictably Iranian: “If there’s an Iranian master’s work (like Majidi’s), it will play in the (premier) competition section. That’s a given,” I was told by those in the know.

In fact, if Majidi stepped out to coffee-shops in Versova after shoot, a common question he’s likely to face is around the film viewing culture of Iran that spawns the kind of personal, expressive, yet subtle and subversive cinema. The world’s best filmmakers would wish for such a mainstream audience. Most Versova directors bemoan the commercial pressures of the Mumbai film industry they operate in. It’s in fact no different for Iran, as I discovered at a mainstream theatre in Teheran once — hoping to catch a Majidi/Makhmalbaf type of movie. People were laughing their heads off to a very David Dhawan kind of bawdy, slapstick comedy in there! Majidi smiles, “Well, that’s the trend everywhere. And there’s a certain group of people who enjoy (a different kind of) cinema.”

It’s hard to tell how much of our short conversation is getting lost in translation. Majidi’s films have hardly suffered as a result of that. At least one of them, Baran (2001), had had a theatrical release in Mumbai, and was widely loved.

He’s been living in this city for “four to five months now,” and what’s brought him here, he says is “the simultaneous beauty and suffering of India that grabbed my attention. Also, Iran and India, as societies, are so culturally close.” They’re, in fact, fairly close, cinema-wise as well. Hindi film, for instance, as the cliché goes, owes its origins to Parsee theatre. Parsees in turn owe their origins to Iran. Getting more factual still, few know that Ardeshir Irani, who made India’s first talkie (Alam Ara; 1931) is also credited with producing the first Persian talkie (Dokhtare Lor; 1932) — likewise a landmark moment in Iranian cinema.

Majidi is no stranger to Indian movies either. He says he’s closely followed works of, among others, Shyam Benegal, and Mira Nair. As with the Indian film he is shooting, A R Rahman had scored music for his last, Muhammad (2015), which was his way of “showing people the real side of Islam, which is nothing but a religion of peace, love, and friendship. Fanatics have nothing to do with Islam. They’re hell bent on portraying it in an ugly manner.” Fanatics from all ends, of course. Which doesn’t preclude the blanket ‘Muslim ban’ imposed by President Donald Trump in the US, the reason why Majidi’s contemporary Asghar Farhadi didn’t go to pick up his Academy Award last week: “I think Asghar’s reaction was fantastic, a matter of pride for all of us. It exceeds receiving the Oscar itself.”

In the current times then, does he see his role dually of an activist and an artiste? Isn’t it harder still to make political statements, given censorship imposed by the suppressive Islamist regime in his own country? Majidi doesn’t agree, “Governments come and go. People remain. Films, unlike newspapers, don’t get stale in a week. Cinema is made for generations. Take Children Of Heaven, for example, which deals with universal human emotions. Three generations are still watching it.” And will continue to, of course.

Sun’s down. It’s pack-up time in Versova for now. Looking ahead at his first Indian film, Majidi observes my hair, and says it resembles his lead actor’s: “Do you want to join us on our shoots?” he jokes. I knock one off my bucket list — being approached by Majidi to act in his movie. So what if it’s as a bloody body-double!

On the sidelines of his latest project in Mumbai, one of Iran's most acclaimed directors talks about his nation's resilience, why cinematic trends don't bother him, and why his Prophet film fell prey to Saudi Arabia's needless politicking
Vishwas Kulkarni (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 5, 2017)

At the fag end of Yari Road, well past its tiny bylanes and faux-bohemian cafés, is a makeshift football field, abutting the shanties of Versova fishing village. The football field also doubles up as a garbage dump; an ecosystem of stray dogs, pigs, storks, and a murder of crows are in perfect harmony. A thin gaggle of delighted residents of all age groups have gathered to watch the shooting of Beyond The Clouds, a film by Iranian auteur Majid Majidi. Everyone likes a slice of tinsel town.

Three make-up vans together make a border between the dump and a sandpit, which, in turn, has been converted into an ersatz Dhobi Ghat. Triangles of bamboo sticks hold up undulating, defiled sheets of cloth (“a section of the original Dhobi Ghat in Mahalaxmi didn't work for us, so we are recreating it here,“ explains producer Shareen Mantri of Eyecandy Films). On arriving, we are immediately corralled in a makeup van and offered beverages. “I think it's better for you to be here, it's too hot outside,“ says the PR agent. However, the air-conditioner is not working, so we step out with some club soda.

“Mr Majidi will be ready shortly, but may not be ready for photographs, mind you,“ says the PR agent. The sun is about to set and a camera crane hovers above the post-apocalyptic terrain.“Where is Mr Majidi by the way?“ “He's in the blue tent,“ says the PR agent. “Is that Boman Irani playing cricket?“ “No, but everyone seems to think he is and everyone calls him Boman Irani! Isn't that hilarious!“ says Mantri. The Boman Irani lookalike is incidentally Mr Majidi's assistant, and someone who has taken a liking to gully cricket. “This is the first time that Majid Majidi is working with an all-Indian crew. It's a very special film,“ she adds. At some point, before our interview with Mr Majidi, we also meet Kishor Arora, co-producer of Beyond the Clouds. “How is it to work with the auteur?“ we ask him. “Hum sirf maang sangte hain. Lekin deta toh uparwaala hee hain.“ (Us mortals can merely ask, but only the Almighty can grant you your wish.)

We enter the blue tent. On the table are half a dozen boxes from what appears to be a neighbourhood bakery. “Oh, no, I'm on a diet,“ I plead. “No, it's not a cake, it's a samosa!“ says someone from the production team. Mr Majidi, 58, and his translator, Jawad Askari, 67, are delighted to meet Mumbai Mirror again; the duo has incidentally met us in 2010.

For a man who is a star in many worlds, Majidi, with his beige cap, black casual tee, military green trousers, thick moustache and a never-ending supply of Marlboro Lights, exudes a disarming air that belongs more to a 'Visit Iran' brochure than an elite film club. As part of a post-Islamic Revolution generation of filmmakers, the man heralded a new era in Persian cinema. His 1998 film, Children of Heaven, was the first Iranian film to have then been nominated for Best Foreign Picture at the Oscars. In addition, his 2002 documentary, Barefoot To Berat, dealt with the plight of Afghan refugees in the wake of America's ill-fated 2001 military offensive. His last film, Muhammad: Messenger of God (2015), was hailed as “intellectually honest, committed and poetic“ by Phil Hoad in The Guardian, but also earned him a fatwa from the Mumbai-based Raza Academy and brickbats from Sunni quarters of the Middle East. Were the more artistic virtues of his operatic oeuvre lost in the Sunniversus-Shia polemic? “My last film focuses on the childhood part of Mohammed. I made this film precisely to give a very clear picture of Islam, to erase the misconception that it is a violent religion. But to my shock, Saudi Arabia and Egypt picked up a point and tried to accuse me of making something un-Islamic. I request their knowledgeable priests to watch this film and tell me what is so objectionable about my film. Let me be very clear: their approach to this was purely political. And I am of the firm belief that Islam teaches you to respect everyone.“

Yet, for all his good intentions, does it sometimes get tiresome to come from Iran, a nation that is always threatening to emerge from the shroud of sanctions, only to slide back into isolation? How does Mr Majidi negotiate his Iranian identity in a world fraught with Islamophobia? “Our biggest crime is that we want to be independent, but we always have to face hurdles. History shows us that Iranians do not give in so easily. We hate to be governed by any other country. We are considered to be rich, based on the oil and gas that we have, but our main power lies with our own ambitions, our desire to work hard. Thirty-seven years of sanctions have not crushed us. On the contrary, such oppression has only made our resolve stronger.“ Yet, doesn't Iran also play a part in the unending, and sometimes horrific, sectarian violence that has balkanised the Middle East? Will the nightmare ever end? “Other countries do follow a formula of dividing the region. I'd love to bring forth an important point here: 10 per cent of Iranians are Sunnis and there is never a tussle between Sunnis and Shias in Iran.“

The atmosphere in the blue tent has darkened, even though Mr Majidi and his translator seem perfectly chatty; Mantri, who so far was part of the delegation that entered the tent at the beginning of our interview, is fuming and storms out. It's like a UN refugee crisis meeting that has gone wrong. “Can we steer the conversation towards the film, please?“ says a second PR agent seated to my right. Sure. How is it to be working with an all-Indian production? “I have long cherished the desire to make a film in India and the team that I have found here is excellent. Work is progressing rather well. My current film follows the same skein of thought that informed my earlier cinema; it carries the message of humanity, of love, of bringing people closer to each other.“

Coming from the second wave of Iranian cinema (post-Islamic Revolution), a movement that brought Iranian cinema to the world stage, what does he think of the metastasising influence of digital cinema. After all, a younger, brasher generation with their nano-cameras and what have you is forever threatening to take over the world. “As far as I am concerned, I am still absorbed by my own concerns as an artist. New trends do not bother me. Despite technological progress, the soul of a film will always be the message it carries, the story.“

What has been his most inspiring moment whilst shooting in Maximum City? “One day, on location [at Babulnath, we are later informed], I saw a three-to four-year-old girl. She impressed me a lot. Her name is Asha and she is playing a pivotal role in my film. I did cast some children via a child casting agent, but this chance encounter has changed my film. It's exactly the face that I require, I realised. She is at present creating some of the best moments in our film. I had an extraordinary realization that she is the one. She has a charisma that I cannot express in words. Besides, her English is as good as mine!“ he laughs. Mantri is back in the tent: “I think the girl can be a separate story altogether,“ she interjects.

The interview ends with Mr Majidi telling us that his favourite Hindi word, one that he has picked up on his Mumbai sojourn, is “chalo“. We tell him that it seems that our “chalo, chalo“ moment has indeed arrived and we all cackle as we step out of the tent into the lavender of a Versova dusk. Outside, the PR agent is huddled by the clotheslines, and visibly worried. “Look, the producers really don't want any of that Sunni-Shia stuff, yaar. We don't want any trouble. Can you please, please, please leave that bit out?“ Our larger concern though is getting a photograph of the genius. In the gloaming, there seems to be little chance of this. “There is no light, you see,“ says the PR agent. “Why don't we shoot him on the set tomorrow and email you a photograph instead? Besides, he may not want to be shot. Listen, I'm being bitten by red ants here. Can't we just do the shoot tomorrow?“ When we ask Mr Majidi, who comes from a tradition of experimental theatre, he is only too happy to strike a pose. After all, who would know better than him that all you need to put up a good show is a star and an unfurling piece of cloth.

BOMBAY TIMES (January 23, 2017)

Mumbai producer Shareen Mantri Kedia, on taking four years to convince Majid Majidi to shoot in India
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 28, 2014)

When ad film producers, Shareen Mantri Kedia and Kishor Arora first saw Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven (1997), they were hooked like most viewers. "I liked the style of story-telling so much, I watched his entire filmography at a go," remembers Kedia, who then reached out to the legendary Iranian filmmaker to buy the rights to his film for a Hindi remake. But as luck would have it, Priyadarshan's Bumm Bumm Bhole, based on the same story, had already begun production.

But Kedia, who has produced and directed over 90 music videos (Babul Supriyo, Jagjit Singh, Pankaj Udhas) and several ad films for her production house, Eye Candy Films, wasn't about to give up. Frequent meetings with Majidi finally led to an association. "It took us four years to convince Mr Majidi to make a film in India. I believe there's a time for everything," adds Kedia, who is excited to produce Floating Gardens, Majidi's first English film set in India set to go on floors early next year.

Majidi, who is currently in Munich adding a final flourish to his film on Prophet Muhammad, had told Hollywood Reporter last week that he always wanted to film in India. About the film, he said to the journalist, "It is a dramatic film based on human values."

Kedia too, keeps her cards close. But she does say that the film will have universal appeal like all Majidi films, with an all-Indian cast. "India and Iran have similar cultures, so our sensibilities are similar too. Besides, India has so many stories to tell," adds Kedia, whose first feature production, The Legend of Michel Mishra starring Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani and Aditi Rao Hydari is in post-production and slated for a February 2015 release.

A signature trait of a Majidi film is the obsessive emphasis on photography to paint a distinct cinematic canvas. Managing that in India, would be easy, feels Kedia, who is herself a postgraduate in photography. "A lot of international films are being shot in the country, and Life of Pi and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel prove the high production values our technicians have to offer." For Floating Gardens though, the crew will be peppered with a few international names too because "there's a lot to learn from each other."