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By Sam Holmes

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Indian director Shekhar Kapur

Shekhar Kapur is probably best known for directing the biopic “Elizabeth,” which garnered numerous Oscar-award nominations in 1999. But his latest project, a science-fiction movie called “Paani,” is generating lots of preproduction buzz. That’s impressive, given that he hasn’t cast a single role yet.
The love story, set in a futuristic dystopian city in which the rich and poor are divided by their access to water, is thick with messages about the environment, poverty and privatization. The film, tipped to be shot mostly in 3-D and backed by an A.R. Rahman score (he won an Oscar for the score of “Slumdog Millionaire”), has been the subject of speculation in the cinematic press—most of it misguided, according to Mr. Kapur—about which actor will headline the feature.
Mr. Kapur and Danny Boyle of “Slumdog Millionaire” fame will co-produce the film, which is expected to hit cinemas by December 2012, and the pair have secured a budget of about US$35 million.
Of course, the director says a film like this could call for a budget more than four times that amount, but he’s got a strategy to make the movie for a lot less, combining time-tested and radically new ideas: He plans to shoot in India and Singapore, for instance, to keep costs down, and to use the Internet as a tool to spread the film.
Continue Reading on Scene Asia.

Fuente: India Real Time