Abhishek Bachchan in Bluffmaster!

Parvez Damania wants to make movie magic: and he is looking for help from the UK to do it. A darling of the Indian aviation industry, he launched his production house One More Thought Entertainment (OMT) earlier this year. Now a Cambridge-educated NRI from Pune, Farrukh Dhondy, is to join his team of script-writers, to throw in a ‘thought’ of his own.

Damania has already put together a more than sturdy array of directors for his upcoming film projects — including Kundan Shah, Sangeeth Sivan, Ravi Rai, Jagmohan Mundhra, Ashwini Chaudhary, Mahesh Kothare, T. Rajiv Kumar, Sashi Sudigala and Ajay Chandok.

Dhondy, who has written several books (Black Swan, The Siege of Babylon) and scripted a number of movies (American Daylights, Mangal Pandey — The Rising, Kisna, Perizaad and EXITZ) will be hired among them to pen a Bollywood thriller. His feeling is that this won’t be your usual run-of-the-mill masala flick, however — that not being his bag.

“Indians want a particular sort of entertainment,” Dhondy was quoted as saying. “They are not concerned about the portrayal of reality. Most Indian characters emerge out of fantasies.” He added that his script “will showcase my writing skills; and, while writing, I will try to keep the public demand in mind”. Nice of him to consider the public, at least!

Damania, meanwhile, says he hasn’t taken the plunge into movieland so far as there hadn’t been enough demand for the kind of movies he wanted to make. Now his company’s first release will be Khalbali Hai Khalbali, a comedy scheduled for an August release. Time will tell whether this proves another smooth flight for Damania — or an instance of entrepreneurial Bolly folly.

Also this week: In London the Tongues on Fire film festival extinguished itself with a movie set in Calcutta. Rituparno Ghosh’s Dosar, which stars Prosenjit and Konkona got its UK premiere while rounding the festival off with a story about the destruction of a contented married life. “Love is put to test, loyalties are betrayed and duties are questioned,” said the blurb referring to a story in which protagonist Kaberi comes to terms with her husband’s unfaithfulness while simultaneously nursing him back to health.

Tongues’s programme coordinator, Roopa Saini, told t2: “It was pretty much a full house and it went down really well: the audience really enjoyed it — you could feel there was a lot of discussion because it was such a striking subject matter.... The film is about infidelity — about a woman taking back her husband and forgiving him — and the way it was directed makes it very intriguing indeed.”

Lastly, plucked fresh off the grapevine: Abhishek Bachchan has been in London filming a pop video for the London-based Asian band Trickbaby. The ditty, Nine Parts Of Desire — used in the Bluffmaster! soundtrack — is to be lavished with a pop video produced by Ramesh Sippy, directed by his son Rohan, and garnished with an appearance from Amitabh. The popstar of the proceedings Saira Hussain will be shown dallying with Little B — while in competition with Priyanka Chopra. Steamy stuff.

(A writer and part-time actor based in London)