The making of a convert

The making of a convert
LISA TSERING

A savvy team of Los Angeles based Indian Americans is looking for funding. No, it's not a dotcom. This time it's for a movie! Actress Dimple Kapadia and singer-music director Jagjit Singh have already signed on and the search is on for a young Indian American for the male lead in Leela, a feature film scheduled to start shooting in October. Gulshan Grover is also confirmed and Jackie Shroff is currently negotiating dates for the project.

Writer-director Somnath Sen, 36, a graduate of the University of Southern California's prestigious School of Cinema-Television, has already applied his skills as an assistant cameraman on such Bollywood films as Raja Hindustani, Judwaa, Kachche Dhaage, Jaanam Samjha Karo and Kareeb, among others. The experience has given him a new respect for Indian film style and taught him lessons he hopes to apply in Leela.

"For seven years, I didn't watch a single Hindi film," Sen said. "I thought they weren't good enough. I was going to film school, so I was watching Truffaut, Kurosawa, Godard."

While working in Mumbai, Sen learnt more about the theatrical, more melodramatic style of much of Indian entertainment from all corners of the countryincluding the songs and dances. "Why do we have song and dance? My research led me to believe that that's the way we like to have our stories told," he said.

Right now Lemon Tree Films, which Sen and his wife founded to produce and market Leela, is bringing together funding sources and is actively seeking investors. A number of Indian American investors have already pledged around $450,000 to the project, which Sen estimates will have a budget of $750,000. For $5,000, each investor becomes a limited partner in the project.The story of Leela sounds intriguing: Kris (born Krishna) is a 19-year-old Indian American with only fleeting memories of India, most of which focus on the country's squalor and crowds. He doesn't understand how his parents, now divorced, can have a strong attraction to India and call it home.

The lead character, Leela (Dimple Kapadia), is a visiting professor from Bombay University who teaches Kris' South Asian history class. Twenty years older than him, she is bright, beautiful and articulate, every inch an example of elegant Indian womanhood.

Slowly, Kris falls under her spell, eventually changing his name back to Krishna, and Leela turns to him to guide her through the American experience. What starts as a guru-shishya relationship becomes friendship and, later, love. Things get even more complicated when her husband, Nashaad (Jackie Shroff), arrives from India.

Sen is trying to downplay any potential source of scandal inherent in a cross-generational love affair, especially since one of the characters is named after a god. "I was asked, `How will that go over in India?' You know what happened with Fire, right? So that's another thing we are trying to play down," he said.