Ranchi, April 6: Adolf Hitler is taking Ranchi-born actor-scriptwriter Nalin Singh places, from Berlin to Cannes.
After the successful screening of Dear Friend Hitler at the Berlin Film Festival in February this year, 35-year-old Nalin, who wrote the script of the film and also made a big splash playing the role of as Hitler’s think tank Goebbles, said the film would be showcased at the Cannes Film Festival beginning May 11.
Directed by debutante Rakesh Ranjan Kumar and produced by Anil Sharma, the film stars Raghuvir Yadav as Hitler and Neha Dhupia as his lover Eva Braun. Though initially Anupam Kher was chosen for the lead, he backed out after severe protests from the Indian Jewish community.
Based on the letters written by Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler in which the former addresses the Nazi dictator as “Dear friend Hitler”, the multilingual Bollywood offering will be released in eight languages, including German, English, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. “I’m looking forward to its nationwide release after the Indian Premier League ends,” the Delhi-based Nalin said. The graduate from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, with a production and direction course from TV 18, Nalin was active in the Delhi street theatre circuit. He is also the director of the NRAI School of Mass Communication, New Delhi.
“I was born in Ranchi, where my father T.D.P. Singh was then the chief medical officer at the HEC plant hospital at Dhurwa,” he said.
The film is breaking new ground, feels Nalin. “Writing it was a challenge. Making Hitler and Goebbles speak Hindi meant breaking the rules of the game. But if our Slumdogs can speak English, the Fuhrer can speak Hindi,” he said, adding the script involved two years of research. The English version is songless. But for the Hindi audience, five songs by Daler Mehndi, Bhupen Hazarika, Jagjit Singh and Shaan have been kept.
“No one can justify Hitler’s misdeeds. The film shows Hitler fighting the Allies for world supremacy versus Mahatma Gandhi and ahimsa. History proved that ahimsa triumphed,” he said.
