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Filmmaker Mira Nair has revealed the first look of her next feature Amri, inspired by the life and art of pioneering painter Amrita Sher-Gil. The ensemble cast features Anjali Sivaraman—last seen in Bad Girl— as Sher-Gil alongside Emily Watson as her mother, Marie-Antoinette Gottesman and Jaideep Ahlawat as her father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil.
Set across Hungary, France and India in the early twentieth century, the film—produced by Samudrika Arora, Michael Nozik and Nair—traces the worlds of Europe and India that shaped Sher-Gil’s imagination and her artistic vision.
The film also stars Krisztián Csákvári as Victor Egan, Anjana Vasan as Indira Sher-Gil, Jim Sarbh as Karl Khandalavala and Priyanka Chopra-Jonas as Madame Azurie. Chopra-Jonas also serves as an Executive Producer on Amri.
For Nair, Amri is a deeply personal film as Sher-Gil’s work has been impactful on the filmmaker’s visual imagination. Nair co-wrote Amri with Clara Royer.
“Every film I’ve made in the last several decades has been inspired by the art of Amrita Sher-Gil. She taught me how to see. She absorbed the best European training to distill the soul of India in a way that no one ever had — it is this distillation that has informed my own cinema from the beginning. The bravery of her palette, color and framing of the ordinary people of India has eternally moved me," the filmmaker said.
Amri explores her coming of age as both an artist and a woman, her restless search for selfhood, her defiance of convention even to the point of scandal in her love life, and her determination to create a visual language entirely her own, a note from the makers read.
Speaking about Amri, producer Samudrika Arora shared that Sher-Gil’s life and oeuvres reflect the aspirations of the modern generation, where "identity and unapologetic self-expression meet."
"What moved me to make this film is how Amri carried the best of each world within her, and not lose herself in the space between them. It is a privilege to bring this story to fruition alongside Mira, whose craft for telling crosscultural stories is unparalleled.”
Producer Michael Nozik added, that while the film is set between the two World Wars, Amrita is a character out of time and before her time. "She is a true visionary artist and social revolutionary, her life story a beacon of inspiration. With Mira’s direction, Anjali’s performance of Amrita seizes that spirit of youthful curiosity and rebellion.”
The film wraps production this week after its filming schedule across locations in India and Europe.
