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That Four Letter Word
WHAT NEXT
That in two words is what the movie is about.
It’s a feel good youth movie which deals with the universal
question.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THE REST OF OUR LIVES?
Some like Vishal (played by Cary Edwards) listen to their
heart, and live a day at a time.
The likes of Prashant (Kunal) listen to their mind, they
always have a plan and a time-table for life.
And there are the confused, like Sunil (Abbas Ali) who do
not know if they should listen to their heart or mind.
There are the women of tomorrow like Isha (Usha Seetharam)
with a mind that has as many roads as the world: no limits,
no cultural boundaries whatsoever.
And, there are the women of today like Sara…oops…Saraswathi
who love to flirt with the boundaries that culture keeps
defining from time to time.
Oh, we forgot the likes of Ashika, the women of yesterday
who are so much within their cultural boundaries of home
and family that we hardly see them around these days.
It’s about these youth discovering love, fate, time, guts
and celebrating that moment called LIFE.
The core of the plot is basically a heart versus mind conflict.
Life is not a story, it’s a bunch of them. So is this film.
TALE
Vishal, Prashant, Sunil and Zebra bump into Isha and Sara
at a movie hall.
That chance meeting changes their lives forever.
Sunil befriends his dreamgirl Ashika but he’s unsure about
how to tell her he likes her,
just like how he’s unsure about making movies he’s always
wanted to make.
Vishal fails to get admission into a medical college in
the US for the third year in a row.
It’s time he used his mind but he is now in love with the
free-spirited Isha.
Prashant clears CA and gets a job in the Middle East.
And Zebra becomes a millionaire overnight thanks to a TV
show.
So does Sunil ever get to tell the girl and how?
What will Vishal do now? A career he always wanted or true
love finally?
And what about Prashant? He realises he loves Sara, but
will he give up his dream?
Will life keep these friends together?
Or will they all part in search of their dreams that take
them different ways?
CAST
abbas ali as SUNIL
He’s been a youth icon ever since you heard the anthem
of friendship (‘Mustafa Mustafa’) for the first time. The
actor with a tonnes of unmatched enthusiasm and a fetish
for offbeat scripts. The perfect fit to play Sunil, the
guy who believes that life is like a movie.
Abbas is face known all over South India, thanks to a decade
of working in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and
now English films. He shot to instant fame in Bollywood
with music videos from the house of Rajshri Productions.
Remember ‘Chui Mui Si’?
Abbas had initially expressed his desire to do something
very different to his journalist friend and aspiring filmmaker
Sudhish Kamath. Soon enough, they worked together on a short
film titled ‘Ellipsis’, an alternative experimental film,
purely for the festival circuit.
The first time they met to discuss That Four Letter Word,
the meeting went on for over eight hours till early hours
in the morning. Such was his enthusiasm and excitement.
Today, Abbas is Executive Producer, That Four Letter Word.
cary edwards as VISHAL
He was Bangalore’s heart-throb, one of Channel [V]’s best
known VJs who gave it up to take to acting, his passion.
He’s rocked Bangalore playing Travolta’s role in the stage
version of `Grease’. Now, he’s set to repeat it in a role
that he believes “was written for him”. Cary currently works
with SS Music and recently completed another feature length
English film titled ‘Five by Four’.
Cary was brought up in Bangalore where he studied till
the 6th grade, after that he moved to Rishi Valley, a KFI
boarding school in Andhra Pradesh. His first brush with
the entertainment industry came in 1996 when as a model
he won 2nd runner up at the Graviera Mr. India contest.
After completing his degree in drama from New York University
he returned to India and began working with Channel [V]
as a Video Jockey (Vj) in Mumbai where he spent 3 years,
at this point with boredom on his heels he moved to Chennai
to see what life had to offer.
Cary is also a racing enthusiast and won best newcomer
at the Raid De Himalayas in 2000, he’s a singer currently
working on an album and an author working on his first book.
usha seetharam as ISHA
She was just a student, passing out of Manipal Institute
of Communication. The director found this model and natural
actress at his own backyard (the communication school) when
he had gone for a script discussion session with his professor.
Now, she’s a versatile actress, a successful model and a
vivacious VJ with SS Music, having completed another English
film funded by NFDC.
Usha plays Isha, the woman of tomorrow. She has a mind
of her own, she is as foul mouthed as the guys, fiercely
independent, super confident, biker woman apart from having
all that you would want in a woman. Her favourite line:
“Men are like buses. You miss one, you take the next”.
ranvir shorey as ZEBRA
He’s spent years behind the camera and could have easily
been the best technicians in the county. And he probably
is.
He was Channel [V]’s senior most and most known face. He’s
so larger than life that we had to give him a role that
compliments his personality.
Ranvir plays Zebra—the man who’s all about wine and women,
booze and bosoms and about brands and brandy. Ranvir is
now a full time actor doing mainstream Bollywood films.
He has to his credit cameo roles in ‘Lakshya’, ‘Chottisi
Love Story’, ‘Jism’ and ‘Freaky Chakra’.
Zebra has the best lines and the least scenes in the film.
But that will not stop you from falling in love with him.
This was a role written with him in mind. The story goes
that we nearly lost him because he was booked for ‘Blue
Mug’, the highly successful play that ran for months in
Mumbai. Ranvir played a retarded Sardar.
There was nobody else who we could think of but Cyrus Broacha.
Broacha had agreed to do it too. But destiny intervened,
Ranvir happened to quit Channel [V] around the time we were
to start our shoot and we got our Zebra back.
kunal as PRASHANT
He started his career as an actor playing a role opposite
to Mohanlal and Simran. The Kodak model with his intense
brooding looks fits the picture of Prashant, the all head-
no heart planner who undergoes a total transformation. He
plays the nerve center of the gang – the guy with the head
on his shoulders, a five-year plan for life and a reality
check every morning.
Kunal is among the new kids on the block and one of the
most promising actors, going by director Nasser’s testimonial.
He is currently busy with a few South Indian projects.
CREW
sudhish kamath
DIRECTOR
The debutant director, a lifestyle and film journalist
with THE HINDU, has made a short digital film for the Digital
Talkies Film Festival 2002 starring Abbas apart from a couple
of other short films while studying at Manipal Institute
of Communication between 97-99.
Sudhish and his school-mate Murugan Subramaniam first wrote
the script about three years ago. The script recently was
revised for the 340th time. All by email.
A senior reporter with THE HINDU covering lifestyle and
films, Sudhish has had his pulse on the youth over the last
five years and has recorded changing attitudes, dreams and
aspirations of youth on paper. And now, he’s doing it for
the celluloid.
This film addresses the question, which stares at every
young person in the world from New Delhi to New York – What
Next? What are you going to do with the rest of your life?
That is the question on top of the mind and at the center
of the heart for every boy and every girl in his teens and
every man and every woman in his twenties. ‘That Four Letter
Word’ has a few insights.
A filmmaker at heart, Sudhish has a couple of other scripts
ready to shoot.
rajesh datar
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Rajesh worked worked as an associate with the best. From
P.C. Sreeram to K.V. Anand. After over a decade of experience
of being an associate, Rajesh shot for ‘Junior Senior’,
a film starring Mammooty, as the director of cinematography.
asif ali/karmacy
MUSIC
Asif Ali is one of South India’s most promising music directors,
who has worked extensively with artistes like Lucky Ali.
To give you hint of his talent, within a week, he and Cary
came up with 20 songs!
Karmacy, is an American rap and hip-hop band that has scored
the title track for the film. They scored a track for the
film `American Desi’.
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