It's a film based on her own autobiographical book. Shamim has just finished shooting I Can't Think Straight in London. In this autographical story Lisa Ray and US-born Sheetal Sheth play lovers.
The film has been shot entirely in London and Oxford.
Interestingly Ray who plays the rather unconventional role in Shamim's film, has just beeen seen wowing the world and its poor cousin India in Deepa Mehta's irradiant Water.
Though Deepa is tight-lipped about her protégée foray into another kind of cinema the director does wonder what Lisa (who was chosen for Water after going through a short list that included Tabu and Kareena Kapoor) is up to.
"I've no idea what Lisa is doing with her career," says Deepa. "I know she's very very much in demand after Water. Beyond that I've no comment to make on her career."
Lisa who started her career in Bollywood with Vikram Bhatt's Kasoor strangely, chooses not to talk about her lesbian project.
Aseem Bajaj (who shot Pritish Nandy Communications' Chameli) served as the DOP in the film.
In a replication of TV star Iqbal Khan's visa blues Aseem says, "It was touch and go when some of the crew from India were denied visas. I had to go alone and get my assistants from London. But once there it was smooth-sailing all the way.
We were supposed to take nearly forty days to shoot. But we completed in just thirty-two days. I won't say the film is going to be controversial. Not in this day and age, Shamim has handled the theme with great delicacy."
Aseem returns to London to shoot Shamim Sharif's next film called The Reader, a scandalous yet tender love story just after World War 2 about a blind teacher in Oxford and her student.