All the Best Anusha!

- NDFS Desk

"Peepli Live" (produced by Aamir Khan) is all set for a world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the USA today i. e. 24th January, where it’ll compete for the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema (dramatic) category. The film has been written & directed by Delhi based filmmaker Anusha Rizvi. Its her first feature film.

"Peepli Live" is one of Fourteen films that have been selected for World Cinema Narrative Competition category from 1,022 submissions. The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in the state of Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the U.S. held in January in Park City, Salt Lake city and Ogden as well as the Sundance Resort. The festival is the premier showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. This festival is also branded as Robert Redford's festival as this Hollywood icon is the chairperson of this festival. Actually the name Sundance has also been taken from Robert Redford's 1969 great film The Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (Robert also won the reputed Bafta Award for the best actor in leading role)

Aamir Khan has already expressed his feelings about "Peepli Live" and Anusha on his blog- Am so happy and proud of my writer-director Anusha Rizvi. The film she has made, 'Peepli Live', has been selected at the Sundance Film Festival, in the competition section. This is quite an achievement as Sundance is a festival which is extremely selective about which films it accepts. In fact, if I am not mistaken, it is the first Indian feature film to make it to the competition section there.

Anusha’s film takes a satirical look at the predicament of a poor farmer who creates a media frenzy when, beset with debt, he announces that he will commit suicide so that his family can receive government compensation. Film’s cast includes names like Raghubir Yadav, Aamir Basheer, Shalini Vatsa, Farukh Jaffer, Omkar Das and Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Naseruddin Shah in a special appearance. Casting is the film's one of the biggest attraction. Audience would feel the power of theatre artiste selected from across the India including many of Naya Thetare of Habeeb tanveer. It will be quite refreshing to see these talented actors in a film revolving around the real life situations of rural life and modern day media. The film has been shot in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.

Before turning to film making Anusha had been working as journalist with NDTV at Delhi & Mumbai. She conceived the story of "Peepli Live" wayback in 2005. The concept, the story made its way on its own and finally got the attention of Aamir khan who showed interest in poducing it. Anusha worked on the film with her husband Mahmood Farooqui who is also the co director of the film. Mahmood is also known as a professional Dastango (storyteller) who is working to revive this tradional art.

Recently six dialogue promos (actually clips) of the film were released on youtube, but they were blocked by UTV, the co Producer of the film, within four days. Although some film buffs downloaded it and put again on youtube. Three of them (inferior quality) can be viewed at following clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVPgOO1cOfU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6x9rhNO8co&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SbrYwl1FgQ&NR=1

These clips are really gripping and ensure a good cinema after a long long time. After getting selected for presigious Sundance festival, these promos have raised the expectations of cinema lovers very high. They will have to wait till the 2ndApril 2010, which is the tentative release date of the film.