May 02, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 25, 1429

DHAKA: Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan and his celebrity family members have all tentatively agreed to take part in a film based on the life of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first prime minister.

Amitabh will take the role of Mujib in the film, named “The Poet of Politics”, while his son Abhishek Bachchan will act in the role of a young Mujib, Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury, the producer of the film, told ANA, a US-based Bangladeshi news agency.

The ANA report, published in several Dhaka dailies on Thursday, said Chowdhury, an expatriate Bangladeshi journalist and newspaper columnist, also told the news agency that Amitabh’s daughter-in-law and former Miss Universe, Aishwarya Rai, and renowned actress Shabana Azmi will also act in two key roles.

Shyam Benegal, the only director to have won India’s National Film Award for best feature film in Hindi five times, will direct the movie. “After getting the consent of Amitabh, I am now a relieved man. To project a person of the magnitude of Bangabandhu (Sheikh Mujib), I could imagine no one other than him,” Chowdhury was quoted as saying in New York.

“Now not only Amitabh, his other family members have also agreed to take up the challenge,” added Chowdhury.

It was not clear when Chowdhury will start shooting the film, which will be made in English and dubbed into Bengali, Hindi and other languages.—Reuters