Shekhar Bassi plays the villainous character of Banger in The Winter of Love (formerly ‘A Quiet Desperation’). The character is fashioned on the real life ‘Banger’ of Southall. The name is actually pronounced as ‘Bungur’ as is a well known Punjabi surname.Banger’s character soon took on the ‘shadow’ in the film. A family friend, unknown to all, has been abusing the mentally unstable Preeti in

As the film develops, we come to see Banger manipulating the family members for his own sexual gratification. Played with a quiet sinisterism by Shekhar Bassi, the darkness of the character envelopes the film.

Shekhar also came on prior to shooting as script editor and helped with developing aspects of the story. Being a low budget arthouse feature, the script had to be modified to meet with the low budget demands of the production. Shekhar along with his brother Shalinder Bassi were great asset in making sure that the production did not fail.

The duo has been writing since 1996 and has to their credit the theatre play ‘Chemistry’ along with a feature script based on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Kabuliwalla'(1998). Other credits include Dress Code, Blazing Bras, Come Home, Six Points to Living, Indian Summer, Charmed Offensive and much more.

Originally published in the About Film Blog.