Rajiv Anchal to direct a film on Mumbai slums

Chennai (PTI): After Slumdog Millionaire, movie goers may soon get another insight into slums with Malayalam director Rajiv Anchal all set to make a multi-lingual film based on a novel revolving around a don emerging from Mumbai's Dharavi shanties.

If Slumdog Millionaire narrated the story of Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, the film based on the novel Angel of God by writer Jyothi Menon revolves around a single character called Moosa Bhai, who was born into the bowels of poverty in Dharavi to a drunken father.

Angel of God would be made in Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil and Menon is signing up with Anchal, whose work 'Guru' was nominated for an Oscar in the foreign category section in 1997.

"I am signing up with Director Rajiv Anchal very shortly to transform my novel into a Malayalam movie", Menon told PTI.

She said she was also holding talks with Hindi and Tamil producers. "Currently, many producers including Tamil and Hindu were evincing interest in striking a deal with me to produce a movie based on my novel", she said.

Menon said the book subtly brings to light the different kinds of people and situations one encounters in life - people, who wear masks of decency to get along, the once who come into your life and touch you and events that change your life forever..."

"My protagonists in this book are transformers. They not only transform themselves, but those around them. I believe that we have power to transform, if only we believe."

For this full length fiction feature, Jyothi alais Jyo as she is popularly called, said she had spent five years researching and three years to write this book.

Speaking over phone from Kerala, Anchal, who had produced many award winning films said, he was interested in making the movie because the fiction of the novel would be fit for a cinema story.

Anchal said "this story can be transformed into a good screen play. It (novel) has all the qualities to be adapted into a movie, which I would be doing it", he said.

Anchal, with many international awards to his credit, said the deal would be finalised this week and he would decide on the cast after that.

Menon also said that she would be releasing three more books this year including a book titled 'Gold fish' for children.