/> Even as Rituparno Ghosh prepares to walk the Red Carpet at the Toronto Film Festival for the Gala section with his new film The Last Lear, news comes that the much talked-about film has been selected for the London Film Festival.

Last Lear shares the posh Gala section in Toronto with Alexi Tan's Chinese period epic Blood Brothers (which also happens to be the title of Vishal Bharadwaj's film on AIDS!).

Ritu will be joined in Toronto festival by his cast, Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal and young Bengali actor Jishu Sengupta.

Says Ritu, "First they thought they'd put my film at Toronto in the 'Masters' section. But then they saw it more suited to the Gala section where incidentally another film by an Indian—Deepa Mehta's Water—had premiered last year."

But before Toronto, the Festival-friendly filmmaker has left for 4-day retrospective of his films on Friday.

The 4-city festival in Israel is part of a larger festival of India to commemorate 15 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries."They're holding a 4-city retrospective of my films in Israel.

The films selected are Doshor, Antar Mahal, Chokher Bali and Raincoat. I was asked about my personal favourites. I wanted Bariwali to go. But I'm happy with the selections. Mitali, Prahlad Kakkad's wife master-minded the retro.

I'm now in Tel Aviv, then I go to Jerusalem. . then two more cities. I'm already exhausted. The festival and retrospectives are getting very tiring, " says the director who proceeds to Toronto and London after Israel.

Speaking of Last Lear going to London Ritu says, "Shakespearean interpretations over the years have always been in a colonial context.

Last Lear is the first attempt to take Shakespeare away from the Colonial context and place it in an indigenous Indian context and actually transpose it to a film unit. It would be interesting to see the reaction to my interpretation of Shakespeare in London, because the Bard lives there."