Lena: I am excited to be working in a different language and space with Footprints on Water

Lena and Nimisha Sajayan are set to act with Adil Hussain in a British-Indian production, titled

Footprints on Water

, directed by Nathalia Syam. The story about an illegal immigrant family has Lena playing Adil’s second wife and Nimisha as his daughter from his first marriage. Adil’s character is in search of his missing daughter, while having to stay out of the police radar.

Speaking about the project, which is set to start filming in the UK in December, Lena says, “I’m very excited and eagerly looking forward to my first English-language, international film. Nathalia is a Malayali settled in the UK, so she has been following our work closely and that is how she got in touch with us. The film is a realistic depiction of the life and troubles that immigrants face. The thrill of working on the film for me is that it gives me the chance to perform in a different language, space and style of story telling.” Interestingly, the director had worked with Lena when she was 3-years-old in a soap ad. “I recollected it when she had told me about it,” says Lena, laughing.

The film, written by Nathalia’s sister Neeta Syam, will be predominantly in English, but as a story covering an international topic, will also have other languages woven in. The film also features Tomb Raider actor Antonio Aakeel, who plays an Afghani refugee. “I am doing my homework and sketching out the character in great detail in my mind. I’m watching films featuring my co-stars. The director has given detailed character descriptions and we are all discussing it together,” says Lena, adding that the way of working feels corporate, but also with a nice mix of intimacy.

The actor says that cinema is standing at a juncture where stories are getting more global, thanks to the OTT platform. “Even when we tell local stories, we are narrating it in a way that can be understood by a wider audience,” she says.