Ekta-Gups first JV rolls next month

Sanjay Gupta and Ekta Kapoor's first joint venture Ganja Coast rolls next month. It is based on Paul Mann's novel of the same name, and revolves around the Goan underbelly of drugs and corruption. The film will feature international technicians and stars.

Gupta, who has bought the rights to make the film, will be soon leaving for a recce of Goa's Anjuna beach (where the film will be shot), says, "The book was recommended to me by Pooja Bhatt.

It's a dark thriller about the Goan drug scenario and the nexus between politicians, drug dealers and cops. Obviously, the author must have spent a lot of time in Goa."
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Catching the pulse

Gupta reveals that when he first pitched the film to Ekta, he didn't expect her to understand the dynamics of the story but he was proved wrong. "I must say that Ekta is the smartest woman I have met in the first hearing itself, she caught the pulse of the story.

At every meeting after that, she would keep asking me why we were not doing Ganja Coast. It isn't a conventional film because apart from the story, the film involves an international crew and Hollywood and Indian actors. But Ekta understood that and was ready to go ahead with it."

Being such a controversial film, won't GC ruffle many feathers? Gupta laughs, "But isn't White Feathers about ruffling feathers? When we made Shootout at Lokhandwala we had threats from many people as it was a very controversial subject. Ekta and I are not new to controversies we are both controversy's children."

Ganja Coaster?

It all begins in Bombay, when George Sansi gets a bizarre visit from his former boss, the powerful joint commissioner of crime branch, Narendra Jamal.

Jamal confides that the government's plans for Goa the so-called Ganja Coast, a decadent beach community where aging American hippies and drug dealers mingle will create an opportunity for Indian-style corruption that staggers even the cynical Sansi.

The morning after the latest beach party, the strangled body of a child is found floating in the waves. With his American lover, newspaper reporter Annie Gennaro, Sansi sets out. They hack their way into a tangled jungle of Western dropouts, drugs, money, and murder.