Bollywood Dhamaka at Locarno International Film Festival

After two Bollywood films, “The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey” and “Village Football” screened at the Locarno film festival, Rituparno Ghosh’s stark and silent Bengali film Antar Mahal and it actor Jackie Shroff has been selected for the competitive section of the prestigious festival in the best film and best actor categories.

Antar Mahal is a period drama about forbidden love set in a feudal landscape.
Here Jackie plays an authoritative “zamindar” (landlord) in the film, who marries a second time to a woman half his age when his first wife fails to bear him a son. Jackie admitted that the idea of managing two wives has attracted him towards the role.

The film, scheduled for media screening on August 10, is a story of a wicked Zamindar, his wives, Rupa Ganguly and Soha Ali Khan , and a sculptor, played by Abhishek, and his wife, Raima Sen .

“It is a power-packed role in a very sensitively made film,” says the suave actor. “It is not always that one gets an opportunity to work with a director of the quality of Rituparno Ghosh. It’s always a privilege working with such directors. I am glad to have a very promising line-up of films with some of the best directors in the industry.”

Jackie is confident that his performance in the film will not go unnoticed. Bengali language is no bar for him, the language is as sweet as “rasagulla”. Jackie began with just two words of Bengali but in the due course of the shoot has become so proficient in the language, that his voice has been used in the dubbing too.

Among Jackie’s forthcoming films are Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “Yagna”, in which he plays an out and out negative role. Then there’s Priyadarshan’s “Kyonki”, in which he plays the role of a doctor in a madhouse, Tanuja Chandra’s “Runway” and Poonam Sinha’s comedy “Mera Dil Lekar Dekho”. He smiles: “After doing 180 films, I have this urge to do something different.”