Singapore: After making several critically acclaimed movies, director Mira Nair is making a film on the Beatles and their inspirational stay at an ashram in Rishikesh in the late 1960s to learn transcendental meditation.
The 90-minute "docu-feature" will capture the Fab Four's experience and their subsequent transformation during the stay at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas, which prompted many celebrities and youths to travel to the East in quest of peace.
The Liverpool lads composed 48 songs, 17 of which were included in their famous White Album, when they were in Rishikesh for several weeks in February, March and April in 1968 -- considered the most creative period of the Beatles.
"It is not just an anthology of the Beatles. It will be more eternal. What they left over is amazing. They were really free-wheeling in their thoughts when they stayed at the ashram," said Nair, who is making her first documentary- feature.
The docu-feature will use a mix of archival footage, interviews and fresh shots of the temple town to unravel the Beatles' experience in India and explore and examine the broader theme of artistic inspiration and how it comes about in a very surprising and abrupt way.
"Inspiration is the core. It is a question of how someone finds it at the least expected places that always interests and intrigues me. In my view, there is no formula," said Nair, who is thinking of roping in Paul McCartney for the film.
The Beatles renounced drug use in 1968 and decided to become disciples of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after attending his lecture.
What followed was an outpouring of music and a hippie exodus to India to study mysticism and to find solace from a hard life.
"We can still find Beatles look-alikes in Shillong," said the acclaimed filmmaker, who was here to present the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. The film, though still in the early stages of production, will be completed in a year.
Documentary-features on the lives of bands and musicians are becoming popular in the West, with the latest one to make waves being Martin Scorcese's two-part film on pop icon Bob Dylan.
As her newest venture The Namesake, a poignant version of Jhumpa Lahiri's best-selling novel, receives rave reviews at film festivals, Nair is also making four 12-minute documentaries on AIDS.
The films, part of the AIDS Jago series, will be directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, Santosh Sivan, Kamal Hassan and Nair and feature stars like Saif Ali Khan. One of Nair's films, which has the message "AIDS virus knows no class", will be scripted by Zoya Akhtar.
Nair also plans to make a film on America's Iraq invasion to tell the Iraqi side of the story.
"The Middle East has never been in a worse shape. I want to roam the streets of Iraq to tell the experience and suffering of the Iraqi people. What it is like being at the receiving end of the litany of freedom," she said.
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