London: Shyam Benegal, considered father of new wave Indian cinema, will next month start work on a feature film on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the legendary freedom fighter who raised and led Indian National Army.

"The film will be ready for release by the middle of next year," Benegal said.

At a function marking the release of book entitled 'Shyam Benegal' authored by budding writer Sangeeta Datta, the acclaimed film director said the film would be shot on locales in Germany, Kazakhstan, Burma and Japan.

"It is a great adventurous story. It deals with the last five years of his life. It is also great adventurous story from the time he escaped from Calcutta and built an army of 80,000 fighting men within a short period," he said.

At the function that saw Indian High Commissioner Ronen Sen releasing the eponymous book on the film director, Benegal also presented awards to winners of the Nehru Centre-Imagine Asian Short 'Film Competition'.

Sandhya Suri won the first prize of 600 Pounds for her film 'Safar' and Anjali Nair received the second prize of 400 Pounds for her film 'Black and White'. The cash awards were given by Bank of Baroda's London branch.

According to Datta, Benegal has discovered some of the best acting talents in Indian films, a veritable gallery of critically acclaimed dramatic actors whose names became synonymous with parallel cinema, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Anant Nag, Om Puri and others.

And these performers appearing and then reappearing as in a repertory company, exhibit unique strengths and talents from film to film and in the works of other parallel cinema directors, Datta notes.

Benegal said he opted for the actors from the National School of Drama, Delhi, as he could not afford to pay the "stars".

His films 'Ankur' and 'Nishant' were directly sited in the history of peasant revolt in South East India.

Benegal used the revolt against the British in 1857 as the backdrop for an unusual story of a Pathan and an Anglo Indian girl in 'Junoon' (1977).

Muslim identity issue was explored in 'Mammo' (1995) through a deeply sensitive and understated story of a Pakistani refugee in Bombay, Datta observes.

His work radically challenged middle class morality and received notions of womanhood (ideal wife and mother) sometimes drawing censorious responses as he did with 'Ankur' and 'Bhumika' (1977).

Mainstream industrywallahs condemned his subjects as non-Indian, whereas feminists alleged his female characters were portrayed too much as victims. Yet the very credibility of his characters (so often double marginalised by case and gender invests them with deep dignity, Datta says.

Benegal has had a prolific career with 900 films, shorts, advertising films and documentaries, before he made Ankur, his first feature. In 28 years there have been 21 features and several TV series including the epic 'Discovery of India'.

PTI