Shefali Shah, who was last witnessed in filmmaker-hubby Vipul Shah’s Commando 2, is joining hands with another talented star Neeraj Kabi for an Indo-German love tale names Once Again.
Written and helmed by Kanwal Sethi, the movie centers around Tara, a widowed mom.
She said, “I am a hopeless romantic and have always wanted to do a love story. When this beautiful and delicate story came my way, I was game for it from the word go. Kanwal had originally written the script in German which was then translated into English and then Hindi. When we started working on it, we had long discussions on what Tara would be like and how she’d react to situations.”
As per Shefali, the brainstorming sessions resulted into the progression of Tara’s back-story.
“One of my first questions was what kind of a hotel Tara ran. When I wasn’t convinced about it being a boutique hotel, we gave her the surname Shetty and turned her business into a small Udupi restaurant,” she said.
Revealing that the movie’s idea is evocative of Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, boasting of Irrfan Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Nimrat Kaur, in which a wrong tiffin delivery in Mumbai’s notably well-organized lunchbox arrangement hooks up a young housewife with an aged loner and simultaneously, they interlace a dream world through written exchanges brought though the dabba.
“Food does play an important part in our film too and we know that people will initially point to the resemblance,” Shefali acknowledges, adding, “However, the flavour of our film is different and you will realise it while watching the film.”
For Shefali, doing a project with Neeraj has been equally inspiring.
“He is a very good costar, especially since we come from completely different schools of acting. While he follows the methodical path, my process is more impromptu, so we had these two different energies working on the set which was great as there is a lot of difference between our characters Tara and Amar as well,” Shefali clarified.
In the meantime, Neeraj shares the experience of working with Shefali as barely convincing.
“She has this quality of just throwing herself into the scene which is wonderful. The film has been shot sensitively, edited thoughtfully, and the music is soulful,” he wrap up.
