Thaindian News

By Gurmukh Singh
Toronto, Sep 14 (IANS) After her big-bang entry onto the international film scene with “Slumdog Millionaire”, Indian actress Frieda Pinto has truly arrived on the global stage with two of her films premiering at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIIF) here.

With her films - Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger” and Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” - becoming a big draw here, Freida has become a rare star to have her two films premiered at the world’s foremost film festival.

An adaptation of Italian-Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal’s novel of the same title, “Miral” starts with the first intifada (Palestinian revolt) and revolves around a Palestinian woman Hind Husseini who sets up an orphanage in Jerusalem after the division of Palestine to create Israel in 1948.

Playing the role of the young orphan girl Miral, Freida is the central character of this tragic story.

As Freida grinned gleefully, director Schnabel said: “There was no doubt in my mind that there was nobody who could have played the role of Miral except Freida.”

Asked whether her accent fitted in with the rest of the cast who speak in strong Arabic accents in the film, she said she didn’t do anything special. “In any country, there are so many accents and you choose anyone you want,” she said.

Asked whether she has any offers from Bollywood after her huge success abroad, the 26-year-old actress told IANS: “I don’t know, I don’t know. I cannot say anything.”

If she is the central character of Miral, Pinto plays no less a pivotal role in Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” as the title of the film suggests.

Pinto plays the role of Dia in this funny comedy in which all relationships go awry. The film also features briefly British actress Meera Syal and Anupam Kher as her parents.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)