Over the four days of the festival, Benegal and his wife Neera were often seen on the streets of Telluride. They were in the patrons' line to see Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane (based on Monica Ali's novel) and Persepolis -- Marjane Satrapi's animated take on life in Iran. After the screening of the South Korean film Secret Sunshine, Benegal sat down for a brief conversation over coffee.
"What an amazing festival this is," he said. "You have (Werner) Herzog standing there. Peter Sellers is here and Bertrand Tavernier there. It doesn't happen at any other major festival. It is a true film lovers' festival. You eat, you drink and you see films. What a great idea."
He briefly talked about his next project -- a film based on the life of Buddha, to be shot in Sri Lanka. "That's a long-term project," he said. "It will take a few years to make."
The night before Benegal had introduced Zubeidaa (above) at the Abel Gance Open Air Cinema, he said he did not think it was important for him to give the audience all the details about Zubeidaa -- that it was a part of a trilogy and his most Bollywood film.
"I just told them that it was based on a true story, the life of Indian film critic and his mother," he said.
But in his conversation with Gorin, Benegal placed Zubeidaa in the right context.
"When I was younger, I looked down upon the traditional Indian cinema," he said. "But later, as I grew older, I realised that there was something in that film form and that it had stayed so long. And so Zubeidaa was my take on the traditional Indian film."
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