final call: Saumya Tandon in Aisa Des Hai MeraTelly queen: Sangeeta Ghosh

n It?s the next big thing on STAR Plus. After the grandiose Prithviraj Chauhan with Sagar Films, now India?s top entertainment channel has collaborated with B. R. Films to come up with ?a classical drama of two warring families? in Viraasat. Starring Rohit Roy and Sangeeta Ghosh in the lead, the serial will occupy the weekday 9 pm time band from June.

For Sangeeta, Viraasat is like ?homecoming?. ?It?s been one-and-a-half years since I did a serial for STAR Plus, which was Des Mein Nikla Hoga Chand,? the pretty Bengali girl tells Metro from Mumbai. ?I had told myself that I won?t do another daily unless I am totally convinced. Well, Viraasat is that serial I was waiting for.?

Also starring known faces like Kiran Kumar, Aman Verma and Amar Upadhyay, Viraasat has the tagline, ?Nafrat ke khel mein, do dilon ki chaahat?. ?It?s about these two families who have been enemies for years,? adds Sangeeta. ?And there?s my character of Priyanka who wants to end the enmity. She loves the man from the same family and she gets married to him. Thereafter it?s the game the family and she engages in.?

Sangeeta is particularly excited about her pairing with Rohit. ?The best thing about us is that we do look like husband and wife,? she says. ?This fantastic chemistry was very important because everyone thought that I can only look good with Varun Bhadola.?

n ?In this part of the world all we get to hear is the misuse of images shot with the mobile camera, like the MMS scandal... I am not sure how well equipped we are to produce quality films using handsets, but yes it sounds interesting,? said film-maker Goutam Ghosh when contacted about the Mobile Filmmakers Award 2006 (MFA) contest.

Sponsored jointly by the Discovery Channel and Nokia, MFA has a grand prize of $ 10,000 and a three-month documentary film-making stint for winners at the Discovery Channel?s Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore. That and the growing number of high-end mobile users in the market should certainly make for a major response. Some 609 entries were recorded from India in this contest?s debut last year with two Indians even making it to the semi-finals.

Considered the fifth-generation medium, Mobile Films began to be taken seriously since 2003 when Big Digit of Los Angeles launched the World?s Smallest Film Festival, where conventional technology like digital camcorders were used to shoot films for viewing on mobile phones.

The Nokia Shorts competition was launched in UK that same year. But quite a few professionals have also tried their hand, like Kaizad Gustad. That mobile cinema has become really popular is clear from the number of film festivals in UK, USA, Scotland and Spain, which are showcasing ?pocket shorts?.

?For MFA, there are no restrictions on subject matter and so contestants will have a lot of scope to improvise. Even though the contest allows only 30-second pieces, it is possible to make 10-minute films with existing handsets. Since these can be converted and shown on screen there may come a time when India has its own mobile film fest,? Rajiv Bakshi, associate director, marketing and communications, Discovery Networks India told Metro from Delhi.

n If you thought only movies were difficult to cast, well, the selection of Aisa Des Hai Mera, Sony?s new prime-time show, sets the record straight. The problem was with choosing the female protagonist Rusty, an Indian with a foreign face and accent. She is half-British, born and brought up in London.

Nauheed Cyrusi of Piya basanti fame was the first to be chosen for the role. She cited date problems and the producers almost sued her for not sticking to the contract.

The next to be picked was Shaheen Khan, the main girl in the Pepsi commercial when Shah Rukh Khan plays the snake charmer. But her demand was for a month?s leave for her wedding and she too had to be dropped from Aisa Des...

The makers finally went for newcomer Saumya Tandon who had only done some modelling prior to the show. Her audition tape was approved within two days and on the third day she was shooting for her billboards. And believe it or not, on the fourth day, she left for London to be Rusty.