Wotan Wilke Mohring and Julia Richter shoot for Kalkutta on Wednesday. (Sharadwat Majumdar)

Tom Cruise is not here but Wotan Wilke Mohring is. Wotan who? The German actor who starred alongside Cruise in Valkyrie, the historical thriller of 2008 set in Nazi Germany, and is camping in the city since Sunday.

Sergeant Kolbe of Valkyrie — who tries to stop Cruise from fleeing — is here to play Jan in Kalkutta (working title), a short film by the Hamburg Media School on child adoption. “I knew this would be a bad time to come to Calcutta because it rains and it’s humid. A friend told me not to come here between May and September but now I’m here,” smiled the 43-year-old actor with a light-eyed twinkle after a daylong shoot.

Wotan — poised to sign a film with an American giant, but wary of naming names for fear of “bad karma” — plays one half of a German couple who come to India. Julia Richter, a popular face on German TV, plays Sarah in the 20-minute film that explores the mechanism of international adoption.

“The child adoption story is about the emotional trauma that foreign couples have to go through and the huge sums of money they need to cough up,” said Stefan Gieren, the producer of Kalkutta. The film is partnered by Roopkala Kendra and Tollywood actor Arindam Sil is the executive producer in Calcutta.

Wotan’s first rickshaw ride near New Market. (Pradip Sanyal)

The spotlight this week is on Wotan, whose debut film Das Experiment (2001) was Oscar-nominated. He has around 50 films under his belt and Valkyrie apart he has starred in Pandorum alongside Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster, and in Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen.

“I knew that a lot of independent movies and filmmakers come from Calcutta. Not the big Bollywood stuff but art films. That’s all I knew about Calcutta,” said Wotan.

So what does Wotan’s Calcutta calendar look like? “It’s very different when you’re here to work but I like it better because you become more a part of the city. I like the people, the drive around,” said the actor who will be hopping around New Market, Beadon Street, Mullickghat and more during his 10-day trip.

And what’s on Wotan’s plate? “I don’t know the names of what I’m eating but I like the food. I had something made of chicken, rice and potato. I think it’s food for warriors and for the first time I can hear strange noises in my stomach!”