Rahul Bose and Sameera Reddy, who starred in Buddhadeb Dasgupta?s Kalpurush, will come together for his next film

A pair of voyeurs, a girl unwittingly caught on camera, and the London blasts. Buddhadeb Dasgupta?s forthcoming film is shifting from the rural landscape of Swapner Din and the filial bonding of Kalpurush to an urbane milieu where spycams and terrorists lurk in disguise.

Busy with the third draft of the script, Dasgupta says a string of recent incidents across the world and in the country has formed the core of his yet-to-be-titled film. ?My story is sourced from several newspaper reports. I am intrigued by the growing tendency among people to disrespect an individual?s privacy. It?s a desperate situation. You may be monitored even when you are in a hotel room? Here, there are two boys who have come to the city from a district in Bengal to look for jobs; they live as tenants and spy on a girl next door,? explains the film-maker.

The boys don?t stop at that; they also catch the girl on spycam and then think of cashing in on the sneak peek. The plot thickens when one of the youths is mistaken by cops to be a terrorist on the run, much like the Brazilian being erroneously gunned down by British cops after the London blasts.

Dasgupta is casting Rahul Bose and Sameera Reddy (both of whom starred in his Kalpurush). Shiney Ahuja (of Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Gangster fame) is tipped to play the other male lead.

The film will be produced by Delhi-based Bag Films, the TV production company behind the STAR Plus serial Kumkum. The firm is foraying into film production with Dasgupta?s project and a series of Bollywood ventures.

?Sameera had perfectly fitted into the role of a middle class Bengali woman in Kalpurush. Though several of my team members were sceptical, I was quite sure of her and she has done a splendid job. Her character in my next film is of a small-town girl who comes to the city. She lives alone, is somewhat aware that the boys spy on her but doesn?t know that she is being filmed,? says Dasgupta.

Since certain sequences demand some amount of skin show, the director had to fall back on Sameera. ?I don?t make films that I can?t watch with my daughter. This film is not on the voyeurs or the images they are capturing, but the subject demands some kind of exposure,? clarifies the film-maker. ?It?s a crisis situation in the Bengali film industry as far as casting is concerned. I had faced the same kind of problem with Mando Meyer Upakhyan. There are very few actresses who want to take up such roles.?

Like his other films, Dasgupta will mix reality with the unreal and the main story would meander through layers of subplots. There will be a few more drafts after the ongoing third and even after that Dasgupta will leave room for more improvisations on the sets. The film will roll some time in September. It will be shot in the Tollygunge studios and a few houses in Calcutta, and then in the districts of Bengal.

But before the new film goes on the floors, Dasgupta may finally see the release of Swapner Din and Kalpurush, made back to back and financed by Mumbai-based Jhamu Sughand. The films have been in queue for nearly two years.

?I feel I have lost three important years and it is very frustrating. Now I hear they will release next month,? shrugs Dasgupta, before getting back to the script on hand.