Emigre Indian Amin Q. Chaudhri works on three ambitious films

What can you say of a filmmaker who is set to make three movies based on classics-all within the next 18 months? A $27-million revisionist interpretation of Rudyard Kipling's poemGunga Din: a contemporary movie version of James Joyce'sFinnegan's Wake: and a work based on Henry Roth's proletarian novel,Call it Sleep, depicting life in a pre-World War I Jewish ghetto in New York. Finnegans wake budgeted at $8 million, is all set to roll early this year.

"I think he wants to emulate Ismail Merchant. That's why he is making films based on classics," feels Lawrence Conn, a senior staff writer forVariety, the US entertainment industry's most respected weekly. "Call me a determined man," says Amin Q. Chaudhri, best known for his sentimental filmTigerWarsaw, made five years ago starring Patrick Swayze.

Despite his reputation of being a one-man band-he directs and produces his films under the banner of Continental Group Company from his 200,000 sq ft Shenango Valley complex in Pittsburgh - the astute emigre who came to the US from Britain in 1959 had not planned to take up the three movie projects in such quick succession.

Gunga Din, featuring Ben Kingsley and Art Malik, would have been ready by now had the Soviet Union not disintegrated. Chaudhri had signed up with Len Films to shoot the film there. It will now be shot in India.

This will give Chaudhri, who grew up in Britain and graduated with a Master's in film making from New York University, another opportunity to work in India. Chaudhri, 50, was born in Gujarat, a town in Punjab-now in Pakistan-and spent five years in India. He has however, maintained regular contact with the country.

"I speak Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi, and visit India with my family almost every year." Fifteen years ago, his Indo-American venture - probably the first of its kind-Kashish, bombed at the box-office, but this failure did not affect his career.

"I went ahead with mainstream American films," he says. His films include Once Again, Tiger Warsaw, An Unremarkable Life and Diary of a Hitman. None of these films made mega-millions, none got Oscar nominations. "And yet I have had fun doing them," says Chaudhri.

Diary of a Hitman: Shoe-string success

As for the box-office, his films have cost so little by Hollywood standards that they have eventually earned back the investments - and more. An independently made film costs on an average $10 million, a Hollywood one costs $25 million. A typical Chaudhri movie carries a price-tag of just about $8 million.

He insists the box-office success of a movie cannot be determined by how much it has grossed in the US, and how much it has made in theatres. "For smaller budget movies, there is a rich life outside movie houses," he says, referring to ancillary sales to the video-cable circuit and airlines, which bring in a lot of money.

Following Tiger Warsaw, Chaudhri, who has his own studio complex in Pennsylvania, made An Unremarkable Life, a story of an elderly woman torn between her new-found romance and the love of her possessive sister, starring Shelley Winters and Patricia Neal. While some critics dismissed it as an overcharged, emotional saga, the film was screened in at least 10 film festivals.

"My proudest moment came when I was invited to the Calcutta film festival in 1990," he recalls. Chaudhri came to the city with some apprehension. Would Indians really understand a story about loneliness of the elderly in America? The response was unexpectedly heart-warming.

When the screening ended, there was thunderous applause by the 700 people present. In a way, it was a comment on Chaudhri's career-recognised abroad and struggling on the sidelines in his adopted home.