Chandan Roy Sanyal: Delayed Sri Lanka schedule to avoid trouble

Chandan Roy Sanyal

Chandan Roy Sanyal's directorial debut, produced by Ronnie Screwvala's production house RSVP, has hit an unusual roadblock. The yet untitled film, featuring Anshuman Jha and Tannishtha Chatterjee in lead roles, was slated to kick off in Sri Lanka on March 27. However, given that the country declared a state of emergency last month after witnessing a spate of communal violence, Sanyal finds himself staring at a delay as far as his labour of love is concerned.

Speaking to mid-day, the actor-director says, "Our line producers in Sri Lanka suggested that we delay the shoot by at least a month to avoid running into trouble there. It has affected all our individual schedules. Now, we're looking at rolling the project by July-end as the cast and crew will be available then."

Chandan Roy Sanyal, who has previously helmed four short films, is using the time to hone the script. "We are conducting more workshops and taking the script further," he says. He reasons that the workshops will help the team as the project offers a narrative style called devised scripting, where the characters and the premise are outlined first, and the screenplay is developed later with the actors giving their inputs for the script.

Sanyal further reveals that with Sri Lanka's political climate posing a problem, the team is also considering Assam as an alternative location. "It's primarily a road trip film with a love story entwined in it. Like Lanka, Assam's landscape is beautiful and relatively unexplored in Hindi films."

Also Read: My biggest fear is losing my freedom: Chandan Roy Sanyal

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