Direct(or) connection

Santosh Sivan is taking suggestions for a film from his Hollywood friend, John Malkovich.

Award-winning filmmaker Santosh Sivan has made a new friend in Hollywood and it’s the two-time Oscar-nominated actor John Malkovich. Malkovich has even suggested Santosh a script for a film that will be an adaptation of Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians.

“Making different films in different languages has also made me travel and meet interesting people and created opportunities,” says  Santosh.

Waiting for the Barbarians was written by South African novelist J M Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. The novel is regarded as one of Coetzee’s finest work. lt was also adapted by US composer Philip Glass who wrote an opera based on the book, which premiered in September 2005 in Germany.

The plot of the novel is set in a small frontier town of a nameless empire. The town’s magistrate is the story’s main protagonist and narrator. His rather peaceful existence on the frontier comes to an end with the arrival of some special forces of the empire, led by a sinister man Colonel Joll.

Santosh’s film Before the Rains has got rave reviews so far and the maverick director is ready with his forthcoming movie Tahaan, about a fabled journey of an eight-year-old boy in the backdrop of terrorism in Kashmir.

“Tahaan is about a boy desperately wanting to bring back his donkey home and since the film is set in Kashmir, it touches on militancy and conflict but does not point fingers at anyone,” says Santosh.

Santosh had earlier made The Terrorist a film on the theme of terrorism. Does he like romanticising terrorism or terrorists?

“I have made children’s film like Halo and Malli (Tamil). Then I’ve made The Terrorist, where there is no glorification or graphic portrayal of violence,. Finally, I have even  made Asoka, a film on war, where it’s not about anyone winning,” he says.

g_prithwish@dnaindia.net