'Children of War' inspired by Michelangelo

Indraneil Sengupta in Mrityunjay Devvratu00e2u0080u0099s 'Children of War'

Director Mrityunjay Devvrat happens to have found inspiration for Children of War - which released last Friday - in the book, The Agony and the Ecstasy. He has referred to the book while making his historical drama that revolves around Pakistani military's atrocities on Bangladeshi women and children.

Indraneil Sengupta in Mrityunjay Devvrat's 'Children of War'

Interestingly enough, The Agony and the Ecstasy is a biographical novel on Renaissance artist Michelangelo. Written by American author Irving Stone, the primary source of the novel is Michelangelo's correspondence - all 495 letters - which Stone had translated from the Italian. A copy of the book was gifted to Devvrat by his mother and that's where the director seems to have found inspiration for his film.

"Inspired by Michelangelo's disposition towards art - showing reality the way it is - Children Of War shows how and why absolute power corrupts absolutely. Revisiting the Bangladesh's war of liberation in 1971, it recreates with nerve-wracking vividness, the horrors of those times when suddenly a whole civilization was threatened with extinction," says Devvrat. He adds, "At heart, this is a conventional lovely story of a couple - played by Indraneil Sengupta and Raima Sen - who are separated by sudden war."

Apart from these names, the film also stars actors Pavan Malhotra, the late Farooque Shaikh, Tillotama Shome, Riddhi Sen and Victor Bannerjee.