The Blue Tower is the debut feature by award-winning Indian British writer and director, Smita Bhide, a dark domestic thriller set in Southall
2009-07-31
Smita Bhide was born in Bombay and educated in Southall and at Oxford University. After working for Women’s Activist Group, Southall Black Sisters, and as a Television Researcher (C4 Bandung File / Hindi Picture), she started writing short dramas for BBC TV and Channel 4 (Brief Encounters) and has also directed for television (Channel 4 / Carlton TV).
Smita’s short films, have successfully screened at film festivals in Europe and North America, and have been sold to broadcasters in the UK, Ireland and Canada. They include Park Stories, three overlapping stories set on a sunny afternoon in a London park, starring Parminder Nagra (Bend It Like Beckham), Russell Boulter, Lolita Chakrabarti and Michelle Austin; Cup & Lip, starring Nina Wadia (Goodness Gracious Me) and Richard Hawley, winner Best Director and Best Actor Awards at the Greenwich Film Festival 2001, Commendation Turner Classic Movie Shorts 2002; and Snowman, for Channel 4 / Ideal World, transmitted 2005.
As a screenwriter Smita has written scripts for some of the UK’s most successful directors. For Peter Webber she wrote Underground (Oxford Films/Channel 4), for Peter Kosminsky she wrote Asylum (BBC1), and for Kevin MacDonald she wrote Angola (Company Pictures/BBC Films).
Smita currently has features in development with Fragile/Ealing Studios, with Dan Films (Makers of Creep / Severance) and with Warp X (Film Four / UK Film Council) Darklight Women Directors of Horror Scheme.
