Leslee Udwin plans triquel to ‘East is East’, ‘West is West’

PANAJI - Leslee Udwin, British film producer of East is East and West is West, might just prove poet Rudyard Kipling wrong.

Leslee now plans to make East is West, a triquel in the series, which in essence goes against a famous Kipling poem’s opening lines: “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”.

We are doing a second sequel East is West. The writer is going to start scripting the story soon, Udwin told reporters here Tuesday, adding that the film would pan out gradually and that one should never force a film, it would never work.

Set in Manchester of 1975, Udwins film West is West, the opening film at IFFI 2010, deals with a fathers worry about his 15-year-old boy who he believes is turning his back on his Pakistani heritage and therefore decides to take him to the country of their roots.

Its prequel, East is East, starring a similar cast was made in 1999.

When East is East was made, it was evident that there was more than one film in it. It was not a sprawling historical treatise, but a human story. After the huge success of the film, the writer Ayub Khan-Din was inhibited to write a sequel for some years, Udwin said.

Elaborating on the latest film, Udwin said that West is West was set in Punjab province of Pakistan — where the protagonist George Khan goes back to visit his family that he had abandoned — but was actually shot in the Indian Punjab.

This was so because a Britain-based insurance firm, which provided cover to the film, indicated that Pakistan has not got the profile of the safest place in the world.

But what is the difference between the two regions barring an imaginary line which works as a border, she said.

The films distributor Suniel Wadhwa said a cross cultural film of such magnitude and quality had a great audience in the India of today. The film is scheduled for release in India Feb 25 next year.

We will be opening in nearly 90-100 screens across the country. I am sure it will spread wider to nearly 150-200 screens across India, said Wadhwa, who earlier distributed films like “Monsoon Wedding”, “The Namesake” and “Bend it Like Beckham”.