AR Rahman joins Farooki's No Land's Man as music director, co-producer

Two time Oscar winner AR Rahman joined US-India-Bangladesh co-production No Land's Man as the music director and co-producer, confirmed director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki. Starring Indian thespian Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the film will chronicle a tragic and strangely funny journey of a South Asian man whose life gets complicated when he meets an Australian girl in the US.

Internationally acclaimed director Farooki told Dhaka Tribune Showtime AR Rahman's involvement will give the film's music the global and transcendental quality he is looking for.

"I needed the music of No Land’s Man to transcend into a global standard. For that, AR Rahman is the most gifted person from South Asia. His music will help this film reach that transcendental level for sure," he said. 

Talking about his style of incorporating music in films, Farooki said: "I don’t think music takes a back seat in my films. I think I have a certain way of using music. Like Saturday Afternoon has no music. Onthe other hand, music played an important role in Doob and Television, unlike Pipra Bidya. It depends on what the film demands in terms of sound, music and songs."

Stating "It deals with global identity politics," the veteran director explained why the film is mostly in English.

"It’s an English language film, because most part of the film is set in New York and Australia. A small part is set in Mumbai and Lucknow," he said. "The characters are people from different countries. When an Australian, an Indian and a Bangladeshi converse, the language is naturally English."

AR Rahman commented on this first venture as a co-producer in a US independent film: “Time always gives birth to new worlds, new ideals. The newborn world has new challenges and new stories to tell. This is one such story!"

Welcoming AR Rahman on board, Nawazuddin Siddiqui said: “We are very honoured to have an artist of his stature with us. Not only as music director but also as co-producer, he is going to make this film richer in every sense”

Speaking about the filming experience, the Sacred Games actor mentioned: “The filming experience for this project was challenging but a fulfilling one. From zero degree to forty degree celsius, we had to brave the challenges thrown by the engrossing script as well as a varying in temperature in three different continents.”

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is also producing the film alongside Spirit awards winning US producer Shrihari Sathe, Anjan Chowdhury from Bangladeshi conglomerate Square Group, Bongo BD, actor Nusrat Imrose Tisha and Farooki himself. Australian actor Megan Mitchell and Bangladeshi actor Tahsan Khan are also featured in the film.

No Land’s Man won Motion Picture Association-APSA film fund, best project award in Film Bazaar India and got selected as an official project for Asian Project Market of Busan.

The film is in the editing stage now and is expected to be ready by the end of this year.