By Manissha Despaande, Bollywood Trade News Bureau

Actor-producer and director, Raja Bundela, who produced several television serials under his production concern, Prayag Productions, in association with Satish Kaushik and also directed a film, PRATHA, has made a crossover English film called, THAT GAME OF CHESS. The film shot with a US settled and Indian-born actor, and all-American crew, was shot entirely in the US in a period of 20 days. Bundela and his American partners are now working on an August release for the film.

According to Bundela, the film tells the story of an Indian boy who migrates to the US on a work assignment and promises his father that'll he stay away from all the three vices, wine, women and drugs, until one wrong move changes his whole life. "That one move leads him to a series of other moves, which leads him to an eventual path of self-destruction," he reveals. However, he insists it is not a typical cross-over film, that preaches Indian values. "On the contrary, it maintains that if you want to live in the West, you should learn to embrace the values there, else you are lost," he says. The film also has four English songs rendered by an American-African singer, Leena.

Bundela, who has now shifted base to the US was earlier planning two Hindi films. One of them was being planned with two big stars and was to be presented by Manmohan Shetty but the project never went ahead for want of the star dates. There was also another script that he had written which filmmaker Prakash Jha had agreed to present but is still waiting to take off. There is also a third project for which music director, Adesh Srivastav had recorded four songs, which is currently under consideration. However he reveals that he saw no point in waiting indefinitely for stars to give their approval. "I felt I was wasting my talent here. My NSD, and FTII training was of no consequence. That's when I decided to try my luck in Hollywood. Fortunately my American co-producers liked my last film, PRATHA and gave the go-ahead for this film," he recalls.