Asif looks beyond THE WARRIOR

It's touching 50 degrees centigrade atop the desert mountains of Rajasthan. Asif Kapadia is busy arranging shots for his film, The Warrior. Cut to six years hence. It's minus 50 degrees centigrade in the middle of the snow-capped mountains of the Artic region and Kapadia is seen adjusting his camera lenses to catch the best light for another of his films, Far North.

The filmmaker survives both the extreme climes to come up with two extremely successful films. Critics have written off his only other feature film, The Return – which obviously wasn't shot in any mountain. Although Kapadia claims, "It was sold as a different film than what it was made to be," there seems to be an uncanny relationship between the mountains and his successes. "Maybe, it's a lucky charm for me," says the British born Indian filmmaker, adding, "I haven't really thought about it that way!"

One of Britain's brightest young talents, Kapadia stepped into the film industry as a production runner, carrying boxes from one place to another till one day he decided to shoot his own short film, Indian Tales (1994). It won a few awards and acclaim, which prodded Kapadia to continue with his pursuits. His final graduation film at the media studies course was The Sheep Thief (1997), shot in India, which won an award at the Cannes among others.

There was no looking back after that. People in the industry started noticing him and he soon got funds to shoot his first feature film, The Warrior. At present, he is basking in the pre-release media attention of his latest film, Far North (October 31, 2007), as part of the London Film Festival. It has already been screened at film festivals in France, Venice, Korea and Turkey.

But, why are so few British films made each year? "In spite of the brilliant creative talent and technical know-how, it's extremely complicated to secure funds. As such, most of them are turning towards Hollywood," says the perfectionist to the extent of being arrogant, filmmaker. He usually writes and directs his own movies, except for The Return, which was shot in Hollywood. "It was easier to get funding, but it also took longer to make the film. It was a learning curve for me," he says.

Actually, Far North's script was ready even before The Return, so it wasn’t tough to carry on with its production even after the lesser success of the latter. Far North is the story of two women who rough it up in the harsh weather of the Arctic region (shot on Russian soil), when an injured soldier comes in and disturbs their equilibrium.

For the shooting, they lived on an icebreaker over 11 weeks and had some interesting encounters with the polar bear. "But the strong cold wind often made it difficult to see or hear anything," says Kapadia.

When asked to comment on/ rate the Indian film industry, he says that to an outsider, "It's booming. The healthiness is also reflected in Bollywood though I haven't really seen too many of them. My shooting trips were too hectic to learn more about them."