Update: 7:33am – Film-maker Shoojit Sircar’s out-of-the-box romantic tale will be shot in Delhi later this year; Varun Dhawan to go off social media during the same period.
Usually, Sundays are synonymous with lazy evenings and laid-back attitude but film-maker Shoojit Sircar’s Juhu office is buzzing with energy. The reason: the first script-reading session of his next film starring Varun Dhawan in the lead — meaning all the speculations vis-à-vis the film can now be laid to rest.
Titled October, Shoojit says it’s “not a love story but his take on love”. He says, “It’s again an out-of-the-box kind of story. We started working on this film’s idea, which came from a small newspaper clipping, right before Piku (2015),” says the film-maker adding that it’s “a very unusual, unconventional kind of a story” in the “slice-of-life and romance space”.
Varun, on his part, says that since his debut (with Student of The Year; 2012), Shoojit featured on his wish list of directors. “I am definitely happy and excited. What’s amazing about him (Shoojit) is that he is very sure about his vision. I have met him just now, so I am trying to get into that world, understand it, and the way the film is going to breathe and feel. It’s very different from anything I have done before,” says the actor.
Unusual love
Interestingly, Shoojit’s business partner and producer, Ronnie Lahiri admits that he also wanted Shoojit to work on a love story. “Somehow, we have constantly jumped genres, even if not consciously. Then, we thought, ‘so many love stories get made, so why not have our kind of a love story?’ Our film has an element of a love story but in a very unusual manner. And Varun is one of the finest young actors that we have right now and plus, this character will be a leap for him too from all the characters that he has done till now,” says Ronnie.
The film goes on the floors in October and will be shot in Delhi, which Shoojit calls his “favourite city”. “We plan to release it in the early part of next year, around March-April but we haven’t zeroed in on the exact release date,” says producer Ronnie Lahiri.
Like Yahaan (2005), Madras Café (2013) and Pink (2016) that took inspirations from newspaper articles or real-life instances, Shoojit’s October too has the ‘real’ connect. “Yes, it’s inspired by many real-life incidents but the basic idea came from a small newspaper clipping that I had read. If you see, all my films’ ideas are like that,” says the film-maker, who — quite interestingly — thought of the title while playing his favourite sport, football.
