Canadian actor, writer and filmmaker Don McKellar slipped into the capital and shot a full-length Indian film with Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas (yes, the same) and left without anybody getting wind of what was happening.
The film, Cooking with Stella, is made by Deepa Mehta’s brother Dilip Mehta, but features all of Deepa’s favourite stars — including Shabana Azmi — who the Indian-born Canadian director has used in earlier films like Fire, Earth and Water.
The story goes that Shabana missed out on the title role in Cooking with Stella because, well, the actress is lousy at cooking! And the role requires the protagonist to play a cook in a diplomat’s (Lisa Ray) household who teaches the diplomat’s chef-husband (Don McKellar) the best culinary secrets of India.