Hansal Mehta‘s “The Buckingham Murders,” which premieres at the BFI London Film Festival, will be the first in a franchise.
Written by Aseem Arrora, Raghav Raj Kakker and Kashyap Kapoor, the film follows Jasmeet Bhamra (portrayed by Kareena Kapoor Khan), a detective and mother who, after losing her own child, must investigate the murder of a 10-year-old in Buckinghamshire, going down a rabbit hole of secrets, where almost everyone in the small town becomes a suspect.
Kapoor Khan has said that her character is inspired in part by Kate Winslet’s role in “Mare of Easttown.” “I love ‘Mare of Easttown’ and when Hansal came to me, I said this is something that I’ve really been dying to do. So we’ve molded a little bit on those lines, she plays a detective cop in that,” Kapoor Khan had toldPvNew.
The film is a bit of a departure for Mehta, who is busy these days with hit series based on true stories including SonyLIV’s “Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story” and “Scam 2003 – The Telgi Story,” and Netflix’s “Scoop,” which recently won two major awards at Busan.
“It was a refreshing change to make a film set in the U.K., to have Kareena as this detective, to make an authentic procedural, but not to make it about the procedure and make it about grief or trauma and about closure,” Mehta told PvNew. “Kareena’s face – there are a million stories on that face. It’s amazing – when you put the camera on her and without saying anything it tells you so many stories, in my film she’s stunning.”
Kapoor Khan is on a career high at the moment with her streaming debut “Jaane Jaan,” the Indian adaptation of Japanese author Higashino Keigo’s bestselling 2005 novel “The Devotion of Suspect X,” by “Kahaani” director Sujoy Ghosh, topping the Netflix global charts recently.
Mehta is also known for seminal LGBTQ film “Aligarh” that played London and Busan in 2015 and won best actor at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for lead Manoj Bajpayee. The filmmaker describes “The Buckingham Murders” as “atmospheric” and “more of a personal story with a mystery.” “I would describe it like an ‘Aligarh’ meets a murder mystery,” Mehta said.
“I wanted the world to be more authentic. So I had a predominantly British crew and actors. I wanted them to bring this lived-in feel, I didn’t want it to look like I was pretending to live a film that had all these Indian characters just wandering into an English film set in England,” Mehta added. “I was quite delighted and surprised when the BFI took the film and loved it, because I was bit worried how they would respond to a film about the U.K. made by an Indian filmmaker.”
Mehta has plans to make the film part of a film franchise, depending on the reception. “I have stories taking Jaspreet Bhamra forward,” Mehta said. Both BFI London Film Festival screenings were sold out within minutes of the film being announced on the program.
Next up for Mehta is an epic series on Mahatma Gandhi’s early years, produced by Applause Entertainment, for which principal photography begins imminently.
“The Buckingham Murders” is produced by Ektaa R. Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms and Mahana Films.
