Bad Girl fame Anjali Sivaraman to play Amrita Sher-Gil in Mira Nair’s directorial; Priyanka Chopra to co-star

L-Anjali Sivaraman (Pic/Instagram); R- Amrita Sher-Gil (Pic/Google Images)

Mira Nair's hunt for the leading face of her biographical film Amri has come to an end. Actress Anjali Sivaraman who won praises for her performance in the Tamil film Bad Girl, has been roped in to play the painter Amrita Sher-Gil. Apart from Anjali, the film will also feature actors like Priyanka Chopra, Jaideep Ahlawat, and Jim Sarbh. Nair said that every film she has made in the last few decades has been inspired by the art of Amrita Sher-Gil.

Anjali Sivaraman as Amrita Sher-Gil

Mira Nair also shared the first look of Anjali as Amrita Sher-Gil and the striking resemblance has netizens in awe.

Talking about Amri, Mira Nair said in a statement, "Every film I've made in the last several decades has been inspired by the art of Amrita Sher-Gil. She taught me how to see."

"She absorbed the best European training to distill the soul of India in a way that no one ever had, it is this distillation that has informed my own cinema from the beginning. The bravery of her palette, colour and framing of the ordinary people of India has eternally moved me."

The ensemble cast features Anjali Sivaraman as Amrita Sher-Gil, alongside Emily Watson as her mother, Marie-Antoinette Gottesman, Jaideep Ahlawat as her father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, Krisztián Csákvári as Victor Egan, Anjana Vasan as Indira Sher-Gil, Jim Sarbh as Karl Khandalavala and Priyanka Chopra-Jonas as Madame Azurie.

Along with announcing the film, Mira also unveiled the first look.

Amri is inspired by the life and art of Amrita Sher-Gil, the pioneering woman of modern art in India whose bold aesthetic shook up the establishment during her lifetime and has achieved high stature and value in art circles around the world today.

Set across Hungary, France and India in the early twentieth century, the film traces the worlds of Europe and India that shaped Sher-Gil's imagination and her artistic vision. The film is currently completing production across India and Hungary.

Priyanka Chopra also serves as an Executive Producer on the film.

What is Amri about?

"Amri" explores her coming of age as both an artist and a woman, her restless search for selfhood, her defiance of convention even to the point of scandal in her love life, and her determination to create a visual language entirely her own.

The youngest student ever admitted to the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris, educated and trained in the conventions of European tradition, Amrita developed a personal aesthetic that highlighted the everyday lives of ordinary women and men in India.

This was a radical aesthetic breakthrough that later shaped Mira's own sensibility.

This project is about how an extraordinarily creative person comes to see India and its people on their own terms, not filtered through European or conventional perspectives. As such, it's about seeing and being seen, and that is its universal relevance.

Amri is directed by Mira Nair, who also co-wrote the film with Clara Royer. The film is produced by Samudrika Arora, Michael Nozik and Mira Nair. A Mirabai, Samscape, Papertown Production in association with KNMA and Miramax.