AR Rahman, the Technicolor Team, and Bobby Bedi unveil film on Mulla Nasruddin

AR Rahman, the Technicolor Team, and producer Bobby Bedi launched a film based on Mulla Nasruddin, the popular folklore character, at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Plot details and cast and crew details are yet to be revealed, but Fiddler on the Roof is reportedly an inspiration.

The stories of Nasreddin Hodja, popularly known as Mulla Nasruddin, feature in the folklore of the Middle East, India, and China. Even Turkey hosts the International Nasreddin Hodja Festival annually.

All of us grew up with the wisdom and wit of Mulla Nasruddin. And that’s something which should come back again, because I don’t think the West would know about him. I was mentioning, why can’t we do a musical almost like Fiddler on the Roof. That era is very beautiful, because it was a melting point of many different cultures of education, art, science, astronomy, extraordinary things were happening,“ stated Rahman in a conversation with Variety.

Some of Bedi’s production credits are Bandit Queen, Fire, Saathiya, Maqbool, The Myth, and Crescent Night. 

On the other hand, Bedi said, "Mulla was very wise, very serious and a complete wit—his witticisms were amazing. It’s a great time to use this kind of cinematic language at a time when the world around us is so serious. It’s the Tsar, it’s the oppression of Jews, all of that around you. But yet, there’s so much humor and so much fun in the way they deal with it. And that’s really the joy that we’ll be trying to recreate."