Journalist and film director Indrajit Lankesh is on his way to Hollywood! He is going to be the first director from the Kannada film industry to helm a Hollywood film. In an interview to the Hindu, he said, “I cannot share details as yet. But everything is finalised on paper. All I can say now is that I will be off the coming week to Morocco to select the locations. The film is again about a woman, and an Oscar-nominated actress has accepted to play the protagonist. Soon, we will announce everything...”

Talking about how he was roped in for the project, Indrajit said, “The producer of the Hollywood film saw the rushes of Shakeela, was impressed and approached me. I can’t express how thrilled I am. I like exploring new horizons and now it will be Hollywood.”

Incidentally, Shakeela is a biopic on the life of the adult star from Kerala by the same name. The film has Richa Chadda and Pankaj Tripathi playing the lead roles.

It may be noted here that Indrajit is the son of the late journalist P Lankesh and brother of activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh who was murdered a couple of years ago. His other sister, Kavitha Lankesh, is also an ace filmmaker. Besides directing films, Indrajit heads the Kannada weekly tabloid Lankesh Patrike, which was founded by his father.

Indrajit debuted as a director in 2002 with Tuntata, which won him the V Shantaram Award for Best Debut Director. His next film, Lankesh Patrike starring Darshan and Vasundhara Das, won the State Award for Best Editing while his film Monalisa won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Director and Best Film. In 2006, Indrajit introduced Deepika Padukone to the film industry with Aishwarya as the lead opposite Upendra. This film fetched the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Kannada, the Aryabhatta Raghavendra Swamy Award and the Shankar Nag Award for Direction.

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