Looks like the cine-goers of Canada are ready to look past the major gaffe by the makers of Mausam at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. After the Shahid Kapoor starrer was pulled out of the festival just a day before it was scheduled to be screened, people wondered if the festival would ever again entertain another Bollywood project. But buzz is that the past has been forgotten now, and Sridevi’s comeback film English Vinglish is all set to have its world premiere at the event on September 14.
The film is scheduled to be part of the ‘Galas’ selection for a premiere but is not part of the competition. Our source says, “It will be showcased alongside films by Billy Bob Thornton, Roger Michell, Robert Redford, Mike Newell and Ben Afflek, amongst others. Along with Sridevi, co-star Adil Hussain and French actor Mehdi Nebbou who is part of the project, director Gauri Shinde and producer R Balki will be part of the team that’d be travelling to the premiere."
Incidentally, none of Sridevi’s earlier films have ever before screened internationally. According to the source, the film’s lingual characteristic played a huge role in its selection. In the film, Sridevi portrays a woman who does not know English, and in turn, is made to feel insecure by her family and society at large. The story follows her transformation and how she eventually overcomes her insecurity.
Deepa Mehta’s multi-starrer Midnight’s Children, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name by Salman Rushdie, will also be having its world premiere at Toronto. Before that, Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist starring Shabana Azmi and Om Puri, is set to open the Venice Film Festival late August.