MUMBAI: The Pool, featuring Bollywood actor Nana Patekar, has won the special jury prize at the 2007 Sundance film festival.

The film, directed by Chris Smith (who has earlier directed American Job, American Movie, Home Movie, and The Yes Men) has Patekar playing a father whose son has drowned in a swimming pool. The pool is also an object of fascination by a street boy, who is ignorant about what has happened at that pool, so it is about how objectively the views this young boy’s life.

Says Patekar, who has the distinction of being the only actor to win a Filmfare award in the Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Villain categories, “The amazing part of the film was that the dialogues were not written, the concept was explained to us when we reached the set and every scene was taken in one shot, we had to improvise as we went along.”

The Pool is a Hindi film with English subtitles, which was shot in Goa. It marks the introduction of two completely untrained child actors in pivotal roles. The film also stars Ayesha Mohan, who will be seen next in Gulal, Anurag Kashyap’s forthcoming venture.

It is reliably learnt that the film’s producer spotted Patekar’s photograph and interview in an edition of The Goan Times and approached the actor for the role through Anurag Kashyap.