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A tale of new cities

Debutant director Amit R. Agarwal hints that "Virgin... Mira" is a film with several serious undercurrents

Yet another crossover movie, that increasingly popular new genre of small budget films with a `different' subject? One ponders over this as the title of the movie, Virgin... Mira strikes a different chord. The movie revolves around a small town Muslim girl who sets out to fulfil her father's dream. As she struggles to survive she comes across the shocking story of a London-based girl selling her virginity to the highest bidder. But this is all that director Amit R. Agarwal agrees to reveal about his first movie. Ask him about the kind of audience he is putting his stakes on and he answers with a smile, "Metros, overseas, DVD sales." But what about the growing multiplex crowd who go to cinema halls just to have fun and not really burden the brains much? "See, the audience today wants something new, be it multiplexes or anywhere else, and my movie is offering that."

For your thought

As for the bold title of the movie that seems to be intended as a head-turner and crowd-puller, the director insists it is not deliberately to attract attention but to lead people to think about the subject.

The protagonist of the movie is played by a Bahrain-based girl, Reema Ali, who incidentally happens to be the daughter of the co-producer Gul Rehaana. The producer seems to be confident that after watching the film, people will definitely ponder over how girls can be driven to take extreme steps. .

"Terrorism is just a sub plot of the film," says Amit. "It is not a movie about terrorism or to end it, it deals with a girl and her strong take on life."

The music of the film, which has only two songs, is composed by Vishwajeet. Its star cast is formed of complete newcomers. The director says he required the actress to speak with an accent, and that was beautifully fulfilled by the newcomer Reema. Also, a heavy star cast always weighs down the story, he feels.

"I wanted to make the characters look real and not like this actor or that. People can, thus, relate to the story and the characters." But will this film be able to move the common Indian small town crowd about which the movie is made? The director leaves the question unanswered.

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