Is DELHI BELLY headed for Cannes? 8 Mar 2011 | 523 Views | admin
We have already seen the film's trailer in DHOBI GHAT - MUMBAI DIARIES, Kiran Rao's debut feature. DELHI BELLY has been into making for quite some time and is almost ready for release.
There are confirmed reports that Aamir Khan has been organising the film's previews for a select group of people who are close to him and are known to offer him forthright and 'no holds barred' kind of criticism, while refraining from spilling the beans to the outside world. This is an exercise Aamir has been following assiduously since ages. He takes the feedback of this select audience very seriously and if need arises even reworks and reedits the film. Purely for this reason, he insists on retaining the rights to approve the final cut of the film with all his directors and unless they agree to that, he prefers not to deal with them. Aamir has always maintained that DELHI BELLY is a genuine crossover film made for global audiences, and not merely targeted at the Indian Diaspora like most of the other so called 'Bollywood' movies. The film is approximately 130 minutes long, has no interval, and is in English. So far there is no word about its Hindi version.
DELHI BELLY is scheduled for worldwide release on July 1st, 2011, according to the available information with the film trade. One wonders about this long pre-release gestation period and the real reasons behind it. Here is a wild guess, call it pure speculation. And if it comes true, it is big breaking news. DELHI BELLY may have its world premiere in Festival de Cannes prior to its worldwide release. What can be a better platform than Cannes to launch a film essentially made for global audiences? Aamir followed a similar strategy for the other two art house films of his banner before their worldwide release. PEEPLI [LIVE] premiered at Sundance while DHOBI GHAT took a bow at Toronto.
Here is another piece of news for the eager beavers. DELHI BELLY is a totally far out funky comedy compared with PEEPLI [LIVE] and DHOBI GHAT, and may turn out to be a huge hit with the young college going audiences as some kind of a cult classic. Those who have watched the closely guarded previews have been going ga-ga over it. Let us see if Aamir Khan Productions hits the bull's eye with this one from the perspective of reaching truly global audiences and its box-office success as a mainstream English film. This was the professed objective and strategy of Aamir behind producing it. By the way, DELHI BELLY actually is another name for a common sickness better known as 'Diarrhea'. The trailer of the film was probably trying to communicate this fact in a quirky, funny, and 'tongue in cheek' sort of way.
"As actors, we all want our audience to like our work; so even if you ask me this question after five years I will say yes I want to work harder and harder to be loved by my audience."
~ Imran Khan
