“‘The Unforgettable’ inspiration was much more blatant and unacceptable” - Arsala/Sabrina

In their debut English film ‘The Unforgettable’, co-directors Arsala Qureishi and Sabrina Louis aren’t shying away from calling a spade a spade. They are happy to disclose that the film is based on true events that happened around them with the film’s protagonists based on some real life characters. They go one step ahead and mince no words in declaring that they have based their female protagonist on a girl they knew who was a ruthless character in real life.

"What you would see in the movie though is just a sketch of what this girl was in real life", remembers Arsala Quereishi, "In fact the real happenings in the life of this girl and her man were so much more blatant and unacceptable. We had to mellow it all down to a huge extent and cut short the ruthlessness that she brought with her in real life."

"If I had a free hand and not much worries about bringing the story on the big screen, I would have had even lesser mercy in the characterisation of the female protagonist of our film", Sabrina Louis takes off here, "I don’t think we could even come close to such a character for our film. If we would have done that, it the film would have become too dark and morbid. This is why we played the two characters quite evenly and in a subtle way put forth the extent that they would go to."

"When I was writing the story, I could feel the pain that this guy must have been going through", says Arsala, "In fact it took me two years to get my final draft of the script in place. I think there were such extreme emotions that these two people were going through that we could have never ever known that such feelings do exist."

"At the end of the day, it’s all about possessiveness", Sabrina chips in here, "We saw these two people in love but somehow there wasn’t much positive energy in their affair. We used to become really uneasy in their presence. There was jealousy, obsession and lies involved and it was just not a happy feeling at the end of the day.

Pitched as a film about two extreme characters (played by Raji James and Sofia Hayat), ‘The Unforgettable’ is touted as a film that defies rules and stereotypes. While the man completely believes in control of all desires, the woman feels that one should just surrender to the desires if need arises.

‘The Unforgettable’ has already been screened at The Berlin Film Festival last year and would soon be seeing an India release. - SAMPURN (Joginder Tuteja)