Newindpress

Mumbai, Apr 12: A new Bollywood film will set a love story around the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in a rare take by the Mumbai film industry on natural disasters.

Tsunami, a bilingual film in Hindi and English to be directed by award-winning Mumbai filmmaker Ujjal Chatterjee, will pay homage to thousands swept away by the killer waves. ‘‘People have woken up to issues like global warming and important events like the tsunami, which will forever remain embedded in our minds and that is why it makes an interesting subject to film,’’ Chatterjee said.

On December 26, 2004, giant waves triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean killed some 230,000 people. The tsunami-ravaged Nagapattinam is one of the main settings for the film. Other locations are Bali in Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand.

The film revolves around three main characters: a geologist who travels to Bali to study tectonic movements when the tsunami strikes, and his former girlfriend and her husband, who get separated during their honeymoon in the resort.

‘‘After months of search, the geologist finds his former love, traumatised in a camp after her husband leaves Bali losing all hope of finding his wife,’’ Chatterjee said.

Chatterjee’s earlier film, Escape from Taliban, about the true story of an Indian woman’s flight from Afghanistan, won critical acclaim. A portion of Tsunami will focus on unsung heroes like a priest in Tamil Nadu who gave shelter to hundreds of victims. Bollywood stars Aamir Khan and Rani Mukherjee are expected to play the main roles, and heavyweight actor Amitabh Bachchan could possibly play the role of a senior geologist or a priest.