Director Balu Mahendra’s 1983 classic Sadma , starring Kamal Haasan and Sridevi, is all set to be remade by ad filmmaker Lloyd Baptista.
Sadma , which was a remake of Tamil film Moondram Pirai , saw Sridevi play a young woman who regresses to childhood after a head injury. She ends up in a brothel where she is rescued by a lonely school teacher (Haasan) who falls in love with her.
“Yes I am remaking Sadma. It’s a beautiful film, I had seen it as a young boy and the last scene was always stuck in my mind. I feel the current generation who doesn’t believe in love needs to see films like Sadma ,” Baptista told PTI.
The filmmaker says casting director Mukesh Chabhra is working on the film and they are in talks with few big names to play the lead roles. Haasan bagged a national award for his role in the Tamil original.
“We are in brief talks with some A-list actors because it’s going to be hard to replace Kamal Haasan and Sridevi.”
The remake of Sadma might have a contemporary take and Baptista is figuring out which approach to go by and make the film.
“We have few new approaches to the film but we are not locking anything yet. I am very careful not to destroy the essence of the original film and also not to make the film boring as most of us have already seen the old Sadma at some point. There is a lot of expectation from a lot of people who respect Sadma .”
Baptista, who bought the rights from director-producer Raj Sippy, is keen to make the film in English and Tamil as well.
“It’s in Hindi for now, as for English I am still in talks with Raj Sippy. For Tamil, I just briefly spoke to Thyarajan the original producer, so Hindi is my priority right now.”
Baptista says he will produce the movie himself but filmmaker Atul Agnihotri and Sunil Wadhwa might come on board “in case I get stuck.”
