MUMBAI: Om Puri, Sachin Khedekar and Shernaz Patel will star in filmmaker Amol Palekar’s next Hindi venture, Dumkata, a film that he plans to produce himself.

The film will also feature two child actors – Khush Mallick and Aseem Desai. 

Subsequent to Palekar’s 2005 film Paheli, Dumkata’s canvas appears relatively smaller, but the film is high on content, vouches Palekar. “It is a fun film for not merely children, but the entire family. This film is from the Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee school. People repeatedly ask me why I don’t make the kind of films in which I used to act. Well, Dumkata is my attempt to make a film which will leave you with a grin when you walk out of the movie hall.”

Dumkata’s story is based on the life of a Maharashtrian family. Shooting for the film commenced seven days ago and is being shot across various locations in Pune. Palekar is hesitant to divulge the story of the film but what he does share is, “This is not a slapstick comedy and there are no double entendre dialogues. Kids are having a great time shooting for the film, we are having a great time making the film and we hope the fun emanates on the screen as well.”

The story and the screenplay for the film have been written by Sandhya Gokhale. “Dumkata is very different from my last three serious screenplays of Anaahat, Paheli and Thaang. This subject is based on a real life story,” says Gokhale, who is also Palekar’s associate director.

Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy have been roped in to score the music for the film and have already recorded two songs. The lyrics have been penned by Gulzar. The film will also see Om Puri with his rock-solid bass voice strumming up a rap number.

Dumkata is being readied for an October 2007 release.

(Pictures by: Rohini Bhandari)