The exciting news that Dev D will be screened at the 66th Venice International Film Festival has led to Kalki Koechlin agreeing to visit the city along with director and beau Anurag Kashyap – they will walk the red carpet together. Other stars visiting Venice this year include Eva Mendes, Charlize Theron, Julianne Moore and Nic Cage.
No one is quite like Kalki. Ethnically French, but raised by her parents in Tamil Nadu, she speaks both Tamil and French fluently and writes plays about Eskimos – The Skeleton Woman recently premiered in Bangalore and Kalki is the winner of the MetroPlus Playwrite Award for 2009. Meanwhile, was she surprised at the success of Dev D last year? “I definitely didn’t know it was going to be such a hit,” she says, “I thought directors will respect this movie and film makers will respect this movie, but I didn’t know the masses would love it and take it in which was great for us.”
Although she’s not sure yet whether she wants to focus on theatre or Bollywood, Kalki has a number of other projects in the pipeline. “I will be starting a film by the end of September called Shaitan by Bijoy Nambiar who is a new director,” she explains, “I am also doing a film with Onir called I am Afia which has twelve short films that make up one film. Finally, there’s Happy Ending with Anurag Kashyap where I play a girl who has come in search of her father.”
