Oscar-, BAFTA-, Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning composer A.R. Rahman, veteran producer Bobby Bedi and the Technicolor Group have unveiled a film project based on Middle Eastern wit Mulla Nasruddin at the Cannes Film Festival.
Also known as Nasreddin Hodja, Nasruddin was a 13th century folklore character from what is now Turkey, known for his pithy wit and humorous wisdom. Stories about him appear in the Islamic folklore of the Middle East, the Balkans and China and the character is enormously popular in India as well. The International Nasreddin Hodja festival is celebrated every year in Turkey.
Bedi’s credits include some of the landmark titles of Indian cinema, including Shekhar Kapur’s international breakthrough film “Bandit Queen” (1994), Deepa Mehta’s controversial “Fire” (1996), Rani Mukerji-starring relationship drama “Saathiya” (2002), Vishal Bhardwaj’s “Macbeth” adaptation “Maqbool” (2003), Stanley Tong’s Jackie Chan starrer “The Myth” (2005) and Gurvinder Singh’s Rotterdam title “Crescent Night” (2002).
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Frequent collaborators, Rahman and Bedi reunited at the 2023 Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia. Bedi is already planning a few projects in the region. “All of us grew up with the wisdom and wit of Mulla Nasruddin. And that’s something which should come back again, because I don’t think the West would know about him,” Rahman told Variety. “I was mentioning, why can’t we do a musical almost like ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ That era is very beautiful, because it was a melting point of many different cultures of education, art, science, astronomy, extraordinary things were happening. “
“Anybody can relate to somebody who was wise in a village. And through that, we [could] also [do] a counter-narrative [against] the cliche of what we’re hearing today. And it could inspire and bring a smile to all of us,” Rahman added.
“Mulla was very wise, very serious and a complete wit – his witticisms were amazing. It’s a great time to use this kind of cinematic language at a time when the world around us is so serious,” Bedi told Variety. The producer also provides the example of “Fiddler on the Roof.” “It’s the Tsar, it’s the oppression of Jews, all of that around you. But yet, there’s so much humor and so much fun in the way they deal with it. And that’s really the joy that we’ll be trying to recreate,” Bedi said.
“Let’s do something from this region that is unapologetically from this part of the world – Asia – but it’s global, international,” Bedi said, adding that unlike in present day Bollywood where the narrative pauses for songs, the idea is to revive the musical form where the musical numbers take the story forward. Rahman said that he will bring the experience gleaned from his Expo 2020 Dubai stage show “Why? The Musical” into play for the film and also use his frequent collaborators, the Dubai-based Firdaus Orchestra.
The producer says that the budget will be in the $20-30 million range, “which is good enough for us to create something spectacular.” It will use a combination of live action shooting in desert landscapes with the rest of the environments and backdrops created digitally. Technicolor will do the entire pre-visualization of the film.
Biren Ghose, managing director, Asia Pacific at Technicolor, said: “This amazing project with A.R. Rahman and Bobby Bedi will have Technicolor’s MPC, a world leader in VFX and CG, participating in bringing the story to life through their artistic visualization. MPC’s award winning team looks forward to partnering and bringing to life this iconic story.”
A team of Arabic, British and Indian writers are currently working on the script and the project will have an A-list international cast and director, Bedi said. Rahman will produce via his ARR Immersive Entertainment outfit and Bedi through Content Flow Studios. Filming is due to begin in 2025.
