Role play

After having donned the hats of an assistant director,director and storywriter,filmmaker Apoorva Lakhia has found himself another occupation in the film industry. He will be producing Sean Araana’s debut directorial venture Hide N Seek,along with Moser Baer. “Sean’s been my AD for almost all my films and it was high time he did his own film. I hadn’t planned to produce his film but when I saw that Sean was taking time to rope in a producer,I stepped in. After all,the way a father promotes his children,a director supports his AD with all he can,” Lakhia smiles.

Hide N Seek is a supernatural thriller and the script has been co-written by Suresh Nair and Lakhia. Starring Purab Kohli,Arjan Bajwa,Ayaaz Khan and Samir Kochhar. Lakhia is very excited working on the project in the capacity of a producer. “All aspects of filmmaking excite me but being a producer isn’t easy because he’s usually unpopular for being the one to impose restrictions. But I am glad I’ll get to learn about distribution,promotion et al,” he explains.

After Hide N Seek,Lakhia will work on his next directorial project under the Ashtavinayak banner. The film is,again,like his Shootout in Lokhandwala,a real-life cop story with an ensemble cast. “I get drawn to such stories and have already signed on

Sanjay Dutt for the film while the casting for another two lead actors is still on,” says Lakhia. The working title of the film is Another Shootout though the director clarifies that it isn’t a sequel to his last hit. Of the ensemble cast,Lakhia candidly accepts that in the current scenario,it works better if a film is a multi-starrer. “A multi-starrer with big names will have better chances at the box office if there are another three movies releasing alongside. I have to be practical about it.”