MOVING dramatically away from the Indianness of her last two films - Oscar-nominated Water and the ready-for-release Heaven On Earth, Canada-based Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta now moves into the veiled society of Tehran.
She is making a film on Iranian author and professor Azar Nafisi's bestseller Reading Lolita In Tehran.
Over 100 weeks in the New York Times' bestseller list and translated into 32 languages,
Reading Lolita In Tehran is the story of literature teacher Nafisi, who holds classes in ultra-conservative Tehran with seven of her best students discussing Western literature that is forbidden in their country.
A progressive novel about women's rights and feminist issues in a conservative Islamic society, this time again Mehta is all set to raise fundamentalists' hackles as she did when she tried to make Water in Varanasi 10 years ago.
In the photograph: Deepa Mehta with Lisa Ray
Photograph: Michael Buncker / Getty Images
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