Freezing Point

The veteran actor is quite excited about the movie that releases on May 8. “When Shivajee came to me with this script,I just loved it. Also,I am in no mood to saddle myself with films in which I have to play the bad guy. I have done quite a bit of that,” says the 61-year-old Denzongpa.

The film,set against the backdrop of a frozen Ladakh and shot in temperatures as low as -25 degree Celsius,tells the story of Karma — a widower who lives with his two children and makes apricot jam in a remote village in the Northern Himalayas. “The story depicts the dream-like existence of a family and how it gets interrupted by inevitable odds,like the army moving in near their house,” says Chandrabhushan. The film is releasing in India one and a half years after its premiere at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival in 2007 after which it went to over 30 festivals,including those at London,Toronto and Pusan. “We were constantly told that this is not a typical Bollywood film and will not find an audience in India. Now we will find out,” says Chandrabhushan,who has earlier directed the video for Kunal Ganjawala’s Channa ve song and has made this film on a shoestring budget. Denzongpa adds,“I am happy that this film has found a place in the sun. I was quite nervous about shooting in extremely cold conditions in a remote area. But Shivajee is a perfectionist in a crazy way.” But why was it shot in black and white? “I wanted the film to be in colour,” says Denzongpa,“but Shivajee convinced me that Ladakh’s palette is monochromatic. And after watching the film,I realised that colours would not have suited this film in which everything is stark and raw.” And now he is ready for more: his forthcoming films include Sanjay Gupta’s Acid Factory,Sonam Shah’s Luck,Sunny Deol’s The Man and Robot with Rajnikanth.