Xavier Samuel & Sonal Sehgal To Lead India-Shot Pierre Filmon Feature ‘The Great Departure’

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Xavier Samuel and Sonal Sehgal have been cast to lead The Great Departure. The film, from producer Arvind Reddy’s KVR Productions and directed by the Camera d’Or-nominated Pierre Filmon, is currently in post-production having shot entirely in India.

Sehgal wrote the script during lockdown, with the film originally titled Travellers. Plot explores patriarchy in society through the prism of a man and woman who accidentally meet in Varanasi, and have very different experiences while on the same road trip as they fall in love.

Samuel (Twiling: Eclipse) and Sehgal (Aashayein) star. “Growing up in a patriarchal society and yet with a set of parents who encouraged my fiercely independent streak, I often found myself in a dichotomy of how I was brought up and what society expected of me and hence took to cinema as a form of expression,” said Sehgal of the script.

The film is also acting as a relaunch platform for KVR Productions, the Indian production house that is run by Arvind Reddy, the grandson of renowned South Indian director KV Reddy, who died in 1972. “The theme of patriarchy, the road trip genre, and the script that struck a cord,” said Arvind Reddy. “Walking our talk, we ensured gender parity in all departments.” Samuel has had roles in the Ana de Armes-starrer Blonde, Robin Wright and Naomi Watts film Adore and Love and Friendship, which starred Kate Beckinsale.