Vikas Bahl on his cross-cultural love story

Rewind four years ago and Vikas Bahl would have been in the news for writing a cross-cultural love story about two people, from two countries, speaking two different languages and unable to communicate with each other despite their heart connection. Bahl has now opened up on how this story came about.

He said in an interview; “The idea germinated from my interactions with Majid Majidi, who I was helping with a film he wanted to make in India. The Iranian filmmaker is a fascinating person and we loved conversing with each other but without an interpreter we couldn’t go beyond a ‘hi.’” Bahl also added that when he was shooting for his National Award-winning directorial debut, ‘Queen’ (2013), in Paris, he too faced language problems with the local French crew who didn’t speak English, reports Mumbai Mirror.

Bahl admitted that when he wrote love story he did not imagine it as a film because for the concept to translate on celluloid, he needed to cross borders. “I didn’t know actors from my own country, forget actors from another,” he chuckled. Then, last December, through a common friend, he connected with Kev Adams, a French actor, producer and stand-up comedian. They chatted on the phone and online. Bahl narrated his story to Adams before flying down to Paris to meet him 8 months ago. “He loved the idea even though Kev himself adapts to languages and their nuances easily. And we decided to collaborate on an Indo-French co-production, tentatively titled Interpreter, with him in the lead opposite a mainstream Bollywood actress,” said Bahl.

The story is currently been scripted by the trio of Chaitali, Paula and Sarang while Bahl is busy preparing for his biopic, ‘Super 30,’ which is about Bihar’s educational coaching institute and its founder Anand Kumar who, over fourteen years, has been grooming students from underprivileged families for the competitive Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination. Bahl will start on ‘Interpreter’ after.

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