A filmmaker's real-life tyrst with LTTE to be captured on reel

Panaji, Nov 27: The real-life story of a Tamil filmmaker, his tryst with LTTE and his miraculous escape from Eelam war after a long spell with the separatist militia, forms the plot of a movie--'Minefield'-- helmed by debutant Shiladitya Bora.

Bora is ready to shoot the film next year, which will showcase the inside story of the defunct LTTE, which was decisively defeated by the Sri Lankan army. The story is about a Tamil apolitical filmmaker who meets dreaded LTTE chief Venupillai Prabhakaran and gets mesmerised with his ideas.

Prabhakaran made him believe that the dream of an independent Tamil nation is much more important than his personal dream of making a film," says the director. The filmmaker from Jafna, who is the main character in the movie and whose identity has been kept under wraps, gets impressed and joins the movement... spends 25-26 years in the armed struggle training hundreds of LTTE cadre and making lot of propaganda movies for the outfit, he said.

Bora said rather than the India-Sri Lanka-LTTE angle, this is more of a human drama. "This is an universal story. The scenes from the movie are taken from real-life but it is not a documentary film," he said. The film will go on floors in February-March 2015 and would be shot in Lanka and Kerala. The director said that being his first film, its very important for him. "I always had a liking for political thrillers.

Since last 12 years, I was looking out for a right subject to work on. When I met Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage, while working on one of his films, I got a lot of time to spend with him. He told me about this Tamil filmmaker who was a simple apolitical person when he met the late LTTE leader," said Bora.

The director is currently in talks with few actors from South to play the role of the filmmaker. He said that the film will be shot by Rajiv Ravi who shot films like 'Gangs of Wasseypur', 'Bombay Velvet' etc, and it will be edited by A Sreekar Prasad who is behind majority of Mani Ratnam films. Moreover, Resul Pookutty has agreed to design sound for the film.

PTI