Calgary newcomer and Bollywood veteran Vije Bhatia heads to TIFF to promote latest film, The Saint of Varet
CTV
A new Calgarian with a lengthy Bollywood resume is heading to the Toronto International Film Festival this week to promote his most recent film.
A new Calgarian with a lengthy Bollywood resume is heading to the Toronto International Film Festival this week to promote his most recent film.
Vije Bhatia, who relocated from Mumbai to Calgary in June, is attending TIFF to promote The Saint of Varet, a 2022 film he starred in.
The Saint of Varet is a drama that tells the story of a despondent alcoholic writer who flees Bollywood for Varet, a farming village, where he experiences a kind of miracle that helps get his life back on track.
One thing leads to another for the writer, when he is transformed into a kind of local prophet who is fasting in the hope of producing a miracle – rain – to help save the drought-stricken farmers in the community.
Bhatia was confronted with an acting challenge, namely how do you play someone who is fasting and dropping weight every script page?
“I decided I had to fast too,” he said. “So for 25 days, I subsisted on 500 ml. of water per day.”
Remarkably, he said he still had energy and was able to sleep at night despite having a time-and-energy consuming side gig as a creative producer on the film, meaning he was first on the set and the last to leave every day.
Morgan Wallen leads the 2024 Country Music Association award noms, Beyonce's 'Cowboy Carter' snubbed
Morgan Wallen tops the 2024 Country Music Association award nominations with seven. Some fans speculated that Beyonce, whose landmark country-and-then-some reclamation 'Cowboy Carter' was released during the eligibility window, could receive a nomination at the 2024 CMAs. She did not.
Scott, Hollywood's perpetual rolling stone even at age 86, may be preparing to unveil 'Gladiator II,' one of his biggest epics yet, but at the moment he's got the Bee Gees on the brain. Scott is developing a biopic on the Gibb brothers. On a recent Zoom call from his office in Los Angeles, he was surrounded by meticulously plotted storyboards.