'Eklavya' wows Hollywood

'Eklavya' wows Hollywood

By Taran Adarsh, March 26, 2007 - 02:00 IST

EKLAVYA – THE ROYAL GUARD, Vidhu Vinod Chopra's stylish movie, stunned Hollywood luminaries at a special screening on Saturday, 24th March at UCLA. The screening was jointly sponsored at the Billy Wilder theater by UCLA and MCorpGlobal. The audience viewed the film in awed silence which was broken only for the prolonged applause and standing ovation at the end of the film.

Robert L. Friedman, the former President of Columbia Pictures and AMC Theaters, applauded it as one of the great foreign films to have graced Hollywood in recent years. He expressed hope that the film will become India's official entry for the Oscars, so that he would be able to urge the members of the Academy to vote for the film.

Dr. Rob Rosen, the Dean of UCLA's film program, found the film to be a kin of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magic realism. Lionel Wigram, producer of the HARRY POTTER films, said "He had seen nothing like this." Jeffrey Silver, producer of 300, found it to be "a thriller that elevates to the level of art."

Before the film, Ashok Amritraj introduced Vidhu Vinod Chopra to the audience as India's "terrific" director.