Director Raj Purohit rues dearth of teen films

Mumbai, June 29 (IANS) Debutante director Raj Purohit, who is ready with his first youth based film "Sixteen", says there are not enough films on teenagers in Bollywood.

"In Bollywood, you don't see the genre happening anymore. Very rarely you see films on teenagers. Whatever films are there, they are unreal. 'Sixteen' is real and contemporary. All the lines and dialogues are very real and very today. Any teenager can connect to them," Purohit told IANS.

He has roped in Izabelle Leite, Mehak Manwani, Wamiqa Gabbi, Highphill Mathew, VJ Keith Sequeira, Prabhleen Sandhu and Zakir Hussain for the film.

He said: "As far as actors are concerned, I wanted actors who suit my characters. There was no point having so called saleable actors in the film."

The director says this is not the first time he worked with teenagers.

"I have worked with kids. I have done TV series 'School Days' with them for Doordarshan. It was interesting to see their take on life. I thought there is a story here and I must tell it. That is how the idea (for the film) came up," he said.

"I researched a lot on them and decided to tell the story from their perspective," added Purohit.

Talking about the difference between making TV show and film, he said: "In TV, you have a chance to do better in the next episode. If an actor has not performed, you can make it better in the next episode. In film, in that two-and-a-half hour you have to entertain people. People pay so much to watch it, so you have to engage and entertain them."

Post "Sixteen", the director will work on detective story and a psychological thriller.

"I am trying to do other stuff. Now I have other stories, which I have worked on while I was waiting to make this film. The other one is a psychological thriller and there is also a detective film," he said.

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Sixteen