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Santosh Sivan's first Hollywood film being shot in Kerala
Indo-Asian News Service

Munnar (Kerala), Jan 7 (IANS) The state government has promised full support and security for filmmaker Santosh Sivan's first Hollywood film showcasing Kerala's pristine beauty, being shot here currently. 

  

Incidentally this is the first Hollywood film to be shot entirely in Kerala. The shooting began from Jan 2. A 40-member crew from Hollywood is overseeing the shooting of the film with a working title "Kerala."

The government is enthused about the project as Sivan had to make a lot of efforts to convince the Hollywood team to shoot in Kerala rather than in South Africa or Brazil. 

The government agreed to provide help as it would go a long way to showcase the natural beauty and the rich cultural traditions of Kerala to an international audience. 

Sanjeev Sivan, Santosh's brother, told IANS: "The team from Hollywood is very particular that there should be no interruptions while shooting and no one should have access here." 

The American cast include William Jaudon, Jennifer Ryan and William Roache, while there's Nandita Das and Rahul Bose from Bollywood. Tilakan, Manoj K. Jayan and Nedumudi Venu feature from the Malayalam film industry. 

He added the shooting would be completed within 45 days and the entire film would be canned in and around Munnar. 

The film is being jointly produced by Echo Lake Productions of Los Angeles, Adirondack Pictures of New York and Santosh Sivan Productions of India. The film will be released worldwide by mid 2006. 

The film is set in the 1940s with the freedom struggle as the backdrop and shows how the British tried to make inroads into the spice heartland of Kerala. 

Sanjiv added: "On an average, two scenes are being shot in a day. The editing work is expected to take place in London."