Bharat Bala’s name is synonymous with Vande Mataram, the song and video with his friend A R Rahman. Equally popular was the Jana Gana Mana video. Bala had also directed the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.
His first feature film, Hari Om, produced by Tips Films, was a success on the festival circuit. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and won eight audience awards at various festivals.
The shooting of his second film, Mariyaan, in Tamil, with Dhanush and Parvathi Menon (of Poo fame) is over, and Bharat Bala is back in Chennai.
In an exclusive chat with rediff, the director speaks about the unusual film he is making that will release this summer.
It was reported that you narrated the story of Mariyaan after the National awards ceremony in Delhi last year.
Yes. Six months before the awards ceremony, I had come across a news item about three immigrant workers from India being kidnapped in Sudan. Sudan is the largest oil producing country in Africa and a civil war is going on there.
They were working for ONGC there, and were captured by some child soldiers, who demanded a ransom. People of Sudan feel that their oil is being taken away. As always, nobody in India was bothered about the kidnap of its nationals, unlike say, America or Germany or the UK.
These three men somehow managed to escape. It’s a story of human survival, and it fascinated me.
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