Tollywood actress Shweta Basu Prasad is directing and producing a documentary film called Roots. She started the film three years back and it’s almost complete. Now, the actress is acting in and co-producing a Hindi short film called INT. Café –Night, directed by Adhiraj Bose.
“The film features me along with Naveen Kasturia, Shernaaz Patel and Naseeruddin Shah. This is my second film with Naseer uncle as a co-star and I am very excited,” says Shweta. She adds that the film is the official selection for the Chicago South Asian Film Festival and Kolkata Shorts International Film Festival (screening on August 9 2014).
“Also this short film has received positive feedback from directors like Vikramaditya Motwane, Anurag Kashyap, Abhishek Chaubey and others,” she says. The film’s cinematography is done by Ravi K. Chandran’s son Santhana Krishnan and music is composed by Amit Trivedi.
For Roots, the actress did extensive research before she started filming. “I started working on Roots in May 2011, when I was 20. It’s been a long but memorable journey. The film is in its final stage of post-production now,” says the actress. Elaborating on it, she says that it is based on the promotion and visibility of Indian classical music (both Hindustani and Carnatic) amongst Indian youth, who seem to find it “boring” as compared to other music genres.
The film features interviews of Vishal Bhardwaj, A.R. Rahman, Shubha Mudgal, Imtiaz Ali, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia and many others. The movie is likely to make rounds of film festivals in India and overseas, it will also be shown at schools, institutions, and may have a theatrical release as well.
