Farooki and ''No Land's Man''
When I first heard the title of acclaimed film director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's upcoming project “No Land's Man” which won a grant of Rs10 lakh at the Film Bazar at International Film Festival of India in Goa last November, it immediately reminded me of the Oscar-winning Bosnian movie “No Man's Land”.
At a superficial level, the first commonality one finds between the two is the involvement of production houses drawn from different countries in the project.
If the Bosnian war movie was co-produced by companies in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy, France, Belgium and the UK, Farooki is scouting for producers from India, Bangladesh, the US and Australia to make his forthcoming project in predominantly English language.
However, if “No Man's Land” spoke about soldiers trapped in the civil strife in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Farooki's film -- to be shot mainly in New York -- is going to deal with a different kind of conflict raging across the world: the crisis over what the director says is human identity.
“No Land's Man is one individual's search for a safe identity in a world that is brought together by communication technology and torn apart by intolerance,” said Farooki in an interview to a foreign publication.
According to Farooki, “No Land's Man” is going to have “a strong South Asian element” not only in terms of its production houses but also in choosing the cast, “which is going to see a mix of important actors from India, USA and Bangladesh.”
Farooki says his forthcoming film is going to be a big-budget venture compared to his earlier films.
Besides winning the financial grant at the Film Bazaar in Goa, Farooki's project won another big award of 100,000 dollars from Asia Pacific Screen Academy and Motion Pictures Association in Australia.
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