Asian-American filmmaker Krishna Shah is set to make a biopic on Indira Gandhi and has roped in Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit to play the role of India’s first and only woman prime minister.
Titled “Mother: The Indira Gandhi Story”, the film was announced on the late prime minister’s 92nd birth anniversary Thursday. The pre-production of the film has already been done. It will go on floors in mid 2010 and be shot in India, Britain, US and Russia.
“I have followed Indira Gandhi’s life through media, books and critics. It’s such an exciting and dramatic story. I want the future generation to know her story. A whole new generation has grown and matured since her assassination and through this film I hope to connect people with their history and legacy,” Shah said in a press release.
Apart from Madhuri, Bollywood actors Dharmendra, Abhay Deol and Nana Patekar have been approached to play Motilal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan respectively.
Hollywood star Tom Hanks is likely to be a part of the film as former US president Lyndon Baines Johnson. Tommy Lee Jones is also being approached for a pivotal role in the film.
“Mother: The Indira Gandhi Story” will be made in two parts.
While the first part will unfold the story from her birth to her emergence as “Maa Durga” (goddess of War) after her victory against Pakistan in the 1971 war, the second instalment will cover her political journey from the rise of her son Sanjay Gandhi to her assassination in 1984, Shah said.
Shah has been doing research for the project since two decades. He has read books on her, interviewed politicians, journalists, bureaucrats, writers, military men and her contemporaries to dig information.