Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Gujarati novelist Dhruv Bhatt’s Timirpanti (2015) is set to be adapted into a film that will be co-produced by India and Singapore, according to reports.
The film, which is scheduled to go on floors in late 2019, will be written by actor-screenwriter Jay Bhatt (Bas Ek Chance, Thai Jashe!) and directed by Dakxin Bajrange, who made his feature filmmaking debut with the Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub-starrer Sameer (2017).
Singaporean studios Aurora Media and Darpan Global have bought the rights to the adaptation and will co-produce the film with Bajrange’s Nomad Pictures, said Variety.
Bhatt’s novel is based on nomadic tribes of Western Gujarat who steal to sustain themselves and view it as an art form and livelihood. The film follows the struggles of Sati, a woman who wants to set up a school for her community.
“This will be an interesting yet entertaining realistic fiction film discussing an important untouched issue of colonial impact on the lives of certain tribes, the police brutality that they face, and their struggle to bring the change within,” Bajrange told Variety. The film’s casting is currently underway.
Tatvamasi, the 1998 novel for which Dhruv Bhatt won the Sahitya Akademi Award, was adapted into the Gujarati film Reva (2018), directed by Rahul Bhole and Vinit Kanojia.