A day after Women’s Day celebrations, a woman film maker announced her decision to make a full length feature film on the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. Interestingly, the bilingual is also being produced by a woman.
Award winning, socially conscious film maker-actor, Roopa Iyer is directing NaMo-True Indian , with the tag line A Spiritual Journey . Gayathri Ravi is producing the film under the banner Indian Classic Arts (ICA) Productions Private Limited. The shooting of film will commence in June and be ready for release by June 2019, says Roopa.
Roopa clarifies that the film is “not a biopic on Modi, but is inspired by his spiritual qualities. Biopics have a documentary character, but NaMo is made with all cinematic elements with the focus on his spiritual qualities.”
Why the spiritual aspect? “Of the personalities, who have occupied the PM’s chair, I found Modi highly spiritual. He could not have the visions of the kind, had he been not a spiritual person, ” says Roopa, who has directed films like Mukhaputa, Chandra and Colours.
Filmmaker Guruprasad, Dr Jayalakshmi, small screen actor Sunil Puranik and others are helping Roopa in her endeavour.
During her research, Roopa discovered that Modi was a theatre artiste during his childhood. “That was the trigger for me to make the film on him.”
She has worked on the script for the past one year. She has been meeting people close to Modi. “I will be meeting his mother to learn more about his childhood and his interest in theatre,” she says.
She is right now on the lookout for a child artiste, who can play Modi as a child. “We are also looking for people who can play the characters of LK Advani and AB Vajapayee.”
Admitting that this is a huge canvas, Roopa reveals that producer Gayathri has instructed her not to compromise with the quality, assuring support.
Will the PM himself appear in NaMo? “ We are trying to approach him to appear on the screen as a guest at least for few seconds to provide credibility to the film. I hope he will oblige,” dreams Roopa.
NaMo is just the beginning of the series on spiritual leaders of the country that Roopa is planning. “For the past year, I have been planning to make films on spiritual teachers who influenced generations including Gandhiji, Shankaracharya, Madhvacharya, Ramanujacharya, and others.”
Why was Modi the first choice? “It is not a story of Modi - the politician, who belongs to BJP. It was the demonetisation exercise, that excited me.
The poster of the film
When this exercise was on foreign shores, people rebelled and forced the government to withdraw the decision. Though people opposed demonetisation here, they accepted the decision in the interest of economy of our country, besides Modi’s financial vision.”
Roopa seems awestruck with the aura and leadership qualities of Modi. “His diplomatic stance and spiritual thinking process made other countries sit and take notice of him. I will try and tackle every aspect by employing cinematic idiom and grammar,” she adds. Roopa won’t buy the argument that making a film on Modi is as good as projecting a BJP leader on screen. “Can we call a film on Gandhiji as film on a Congress leader? NaMo will answer all the apprehensions in the minds of the people about my film,” she defends.
In fact, Bihar-based filmmaker Tushar Amarish Goel directed Modi Kaka Ka Gaon , a Hindi film, which celebrated the Prime Minister and his policies and faced problems at Central Board of Film Certification. Has she taken the permission from the PMO to do the film? Roopa retorts, “This is a feature film, not a biopic. Permission is needed only while doing biopic,” she says and quickly adds that she is, “seeking official permission by writing to the PM’s office immediately”.
