New Delhi | Filmmaker Mira Nair on Tuesday announced her new film "Amri", a biopic on renowned Hungarian-Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil, with actor Anjali Sivaraman headlining a cast that also includes Jaideep Ahlawat and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
The biopic on Sher-Gil, a pioneer in modern Indian art who rattled the establishment with her bold imagery and life, has been something of a dream project for Nair, known for movies such as "Salaam Bombay!", "Monsoon Wedding", "The Namesake" and "A Suitable Boy".
Nair had first announced the project in 2020 but it was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, Tanya Maniktala, who played the lead in "A Suitable Boy" was set to portray Sher-Gil.
Nair also unveiled the first look of Sivaraman as Sher-Gil. The 31-year-old Kerala-born actor is known for her roles in "Cobalt Blue", "Class" and "Bad Girl".
In the film, Emily Watson will play Sher-Gil's mother, Marie-Antoinette Gottesman, Ahlawat her father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, Krisztian Csakvari as Victor Egan, Anjana Vasan as Indira Sher-Gil, Jim Sarbh as Karl Khandalavala and Jonas as Madame Azurie.
Jonas is also executive producing the movie, which is set across Hungary, France and India in the early twentieth century to trace the worlds of Europe and India that shaped Sher-Gil's imagination and her artistic vision. Sher-Gil, now considered one of the greatest women artists of the 20th century, died at the age of 28 but her paintings, now highly valuable, give a glimpse into India and its women. Some of the most famous art works of Sher-Gil include 'Two Women', 'The Bride's Toilet', 'Group of Three Girls', 'The Girl in Blue', 'Sleeping Woman', 'Hill Women', 'Hungarian Gypsy Girl' and several self-portraits.
"Amri" is currently completing production across India and Hungary.
"Every film I've made in the last several decades has been inspired by the art of Amrita Sher-Gil. She taught me how to see. She absorbed the best European training to distill the soul of India in a way that no one ever had - it is this distillation that has informed my own cinema from the beginning. The bravery of her palette, color and framing of the ordinary people of India has eternally moved me," Nair said in a media statement.
"Amri" explores Sher-Gil's coming of age as both an artist and a woman, her restless search for selfhood, her defiance of convention even to the point of scandal in her love life, and her determination to create a visual language entirely her own.
The youngest student to ever be admitted in the Academie des Beaux-Arts de Paris, educated and trained in the conventions of European tradition, Amrita evolved a personal aesthetic that highlighted the everyday life of ordinary women and men in India. This was a radical aesthetic breakthrough that later shaped Nair's own sensibility, the release said.
The film promises to be rich with the cultural, emotional and social currents of its time as it brings to life Sher-Gil.
Nair co-wrote the film with Clara Royer and also produces it with Samudrika Arora and Michael Nozik.
Arora said, "Amrita Sher-Gil's life and oeuvres reflect the aspirations of the modern generation, where identity and unapologetic self-expression meet. There is something deeply human in the tension of coming from two wildly different worlds - the challenge of belonging to both, and never entirely to either.
"What moved me to make this film is how 'Amri' carried the best of each world within her, and not lose herself in the space between them. It is a privilege to bring this story to fruition alongside Mira, whose craft for telling crosscultural stories is unparalleled." Nozik added, "While the film is set between the two World Wars, Amrita is a character out of time and before her time - she is a true visionary artist and social revolutionary, her life story a beacon of inspiration. With Mira's direction, Anjali's performance of Amrita seizes that spirit of youthful curiosity and rebellion." Major exhibitions of Amrita Sher-Gil's work are planned across the world for 2027 starting in Paris, moving to Los Angeles, Doha and finally in New Delhi where a permanent exhibition is planned.
"Amri" is a Mirabai, Samscape, Papertown Production in association with KNMA and Miramax.
