Sunday, May 22, 2011

Deepa Mehta's done it - A Secret Film adaptation of Sir. Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

For fans of Deepa Mehta and Sir. Salman Rushdie. Filming is complete for Midnight's Children, A Film about India's Independence.

Published in 1981, Midnight's Children is a fictional memoir. Saleem is one of 1001 children born at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947, the very moment of India's independence.


Saleem's life is uncannily intertwined with destiny of the country. The story spans a period of 30 years from 1947 ending with the emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1977.
Salman was knighted for his services to literature in 2007. India-born Ms Mehta is now based in Canada. Her elemental trilogy Fire, Earth and Water was Canada's official entry for Oscars.

She has roped in her favourite Indian actors, Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi to play important roles in Midnight's Children.
So, the secretly filmed adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children has finished shooting in Sri Lanka.
Director Deepa Mehta said she chose the island location over India or Pakistan, where the story is set, to avoid protests from religious groups. For Ms Mehta's production, cast and crew members were made to sign confidentiality agreements, in a bid to avoid protests. "We really wanted to do this film, and the price was silence," she told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.