Danny Boyle looks set to collaborate with leading Indian filmmakers Shekhar Kapur and Anurag Kashyap following talks with both on his recent trip to Mumbai.

Kapur, one of India’s best-known international directors with credits including Elizabeth and its sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age, is talking to Boyle about his long-gestating project Paani (Water).

“We are looking at a potential collaboration,” Kapur told Screendaily. “He is provoking me to set aside my other projects and make Paani – and he could be right. But before we get into a formal collaboration, the script and the ideas have to be right. We are at a creative stage right now and there is nothing concrete yet.”

Paani is a big-budget film set in the future when Mumbai is suffering from a scarcity of water and the city is divided into the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

Meanwhile, Boyle is also in talks with Kashyap, one of India’s leading indie directors with credits such as Dev D, No Smoking and Black Friday. However Kashyap denied that Boyle is producing his upcoming project Bombay Velvet as reported in the Indian press.

“Danny is not producing my film. We have just talked about working together – in what capacity I don’t yet know,” Kashyap told Screen. “We will discuss this when he comes back in July. At the most I might collaborate on something with him.”

Bombay Velvet is being produced by India’s Studio 18 which is currently co-producing Gurinder Chadha’s It’s A Wonderful Afterlife with the UK-based director’s company.

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