Paani: Bringing Hollywood and Bollywood together

Hollywood filmmaker Barrie Osborne, who shot into international limelight with multi-Oscar winning epic Lord of the Rings, blockbusters Matrix and Face Off, is set to make his Bollywood debut by teaming up with acclaimed producer-director Shekhar Kapur to make Paani, a movie about a world where water is a scarce and precious commodity.

"I'm working on this film with Kapur and I hope I will get the needed assistance from Bollywood," said Osborne who just wrapped up a tour of Indian cities - Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, apparently looking for locales for the shooting of Paani.

The film will be made in English and Hindi and its soundtrack will be composed by A R Rahman. Although the cast of Paani is yet to be finalised, there are rumours that Bollywood superstar Vivek Oberoi might be one of the actors.

Paani is set in an imaginary land 25 years in the future where water supply dries up. There is a romantic spin to the story as a boy from a class of society that owns the water, falls in love with a girl from a class that does not and there breaks out a conflict.

The story of the proposed film revolves around how water is used like currency.

Osborne said new animation technology would be employed in the making of the film and plans were also afoot to introduce computer graphics as this is going to be a very contemporary film.

He is also reported to be planning a film on South African national liberation movement icon Nelson Mandela and another movie on Buddha.

Kapur's Hindi film Masoom, starring Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, had earned critical acclaim in the early 1990s. The Hollywood filmmaker said he also watched some films by Kapur, including his Bandit Queen made on Indian Member of Parliament Phoolan Devi.

"The way Lord of the Rings has become a catalyst for cinema in New Zealand can be repeated in the case of Indian cinema too," he added.

Osborne said he was confident that with the development of film-making technology in India, there would be more progress in content and visual effects in this country.