Sunny's film stalls Abhishek-Sanjay starr

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Posted: 19 years ago

Sunny's film stalls Abhishek-Sanjay starrer
By: Sandipan Dalal
June 21, 2006

Sunny Deol

It wasn't very long ago that producer Bunty Walia had made grand plans about making a film called Umeed, based on the 1996 Malta boat tragedy. He had even signed on the Chicago-based Navraj Kaur as director and the movie was supposed to have Sanjay Dutt and Abhishek Bachchan in the lead roles.

But something went wrong and the project was stuck even before taking off. Instead, Walia started work on Ek Ajnabee and Umeed remained on the sidelines.

Sanjay Dutt and Abhishek Bachchan

There were reports that the project hadn't taken off due to the rift between the producer and his then best friend, Sanjay.

Now, it looks like all those announcements that Bunty made about the film have landed him in a quandary.

While he's still not even started shooting for Umeed, another film on the subject is almost ready for release.

Execution matters

Ammtoje Mann's Kaafila starring Sunny Deol is also based on the Malta boat tragedy in which nearly 300 South Asian illegal immigrants lost their lives. The film is nearing completion but Bunty doesn't believe that his concept has been hijacked even though Mann's project started only recently.

"I feel it depends on the content and treatment. Two filmmakers may have the same idea but they would execute it in different ways," says Walia.

The reports are that Umeed, for now, has been shelved because of the same reason even though the producer isn't admitting it. "No, I have not shelved the film. Presently, I'm considering a few other projects and I might just start work on Umeed."

Meanwhile, Mann is going ahead with his film, full steam. He recently shot the Malta boat tragedy sequence for his film at the Shewri jetti in Wadala. He says, "The sequence will hardly last for nine minutes in my film after it has been edited.

Kaafila is based on the lives of illegal immigrants and the Malta incident is just one of the references that I have drawn. I have never met Bunty. But I don't think his film is going to take off in the near future."