Leela is a Hollywood Film with the soul of a Bollywood Film, begins Somnath Sen. While incorporating all the conventions of commercial Indian Cinema, the film follows the classic dramatic analytic style and the three act structure of Hollywood films, he says. Trained in the Masters Programme of Film Direction from the USC School of Film and Television, Somnath has worked extensively in India and the United States in various capacities as Director, Director of Photography, Editor, Screenplay Writing and other Production oriented activities in Feature Films, Television Serials, Music Videos, Documentaries and Advertising Films. He has been involved with the making of such Bollywood films as Raja Hindustani, Judwaa, Jaanam Samjha Karo and Kareeb among others. Leela marks his Feature Film Directorial debut.

Since most first time Directors prefer telling stories they are most familiar with and since he has lived the life of an NRI for the last 14 years (He is settled in Los Angeles), it was but natural to make a film on the lives of expatriate South Asians, he says. Leela is an amalgamation of his experiences of someone who has come to America and that of his wife and co-writer and Producer of Leela, Kavita Munjal, who has been raised in the United States and lived the life of cultural balance between Indian parents and America outside the home.

The script was written keeping Dimple Kapadia in mind says Somnath. No one epitomizes the Indian Women in her later thirties better than Dimple. Extremely excited by the script Dimple came on board early and actively participated in all the areas of the film that concerned her from her make-up, wardrobes and dialogues. She was extremely professional to work with and has responded with a great performance. (Upperstall was present at a preview of Leela and we agree. But not just Dimple, the film boasts of some very fine performances particularly by debutante Amol Mhatre as Kris/ Krishna and Deepti Naval in the complex role of his mother Chaitali - an extremely fine piece of writing and perhaps the most complexed and multidimensional character of the film). Vinod Khanna was approached for the role of Leela's philandering poet husband, Nashaad. I met him at 8.00 pm one evening and gave him the script and he called back the very next day at 3.00 in the afternoon wanting to meet, recalls Somnath. A few more meetings and he was on. However because of his duties in politics and being extremely busy, he was able to give just a week of dates. But on those days he was available whenever required often even as early as 7.00 am since the unit was working long hours to get maximum work done in the day due to budget constraints.

The film was shot for a couple of days in India and then for a 24 day start to finish schedule in Los Angeles in April - May 2001. Later on some patchwork shooting was done to smoothen out some of the transitions in the film. What's more, the film has an extremely strong technical team backing it. Cinematographer Steven Douglas Smith (Swimming Upstream, Contagion), Editor Suresh Pai (National Award Winner for Snip!), Production Designer Aradhana Seth (Fire, Earth), Lyricist Gulzar, Ghazal Maestro Jagjit Singh and Shantanu Moitra among others. The film is produced by Lemon Tree Films which was set up with the intent of exploring the visual medium in 1996. Since then, the company has produced, consulted on and provided technical expertise to more than one hundred odd productions.

Leela aims to be a cross over film to not only reach out to the South Asian community but to mainstream American audiences as well. Asked if the success of American Desi in its American release helped in some way like raising the funds for the film particularly as the South Asian (read Indian) experience in America became a hot topic with several films being launched with a similar background, Somnath replies that all his funding was already in place for Leela but it was American Desi's good show that gave him the courage to go ahead and make the film.

Today, Leela has been much appreciated at the Commonwealth Film Festival, Manchester and has also won the Special Jury Award at the Reelworld Film Festival, Toronto.