The Associated Press

Published: October 31, 2006

MUMBAI, India: Bollywood director Ram Gopal Varma says his new film will seek to explore India's attitudes toward sex by literally putting the issue on trial.

Varma told the Mumbai Mirror newspaper that "Sex Haazir Ho" or "Sex Present Yourself," would be about a fight for sexual freedom.

Describing "Sex Haazir Ho" as intensely dramatic, Varma said "sexual desire as a feeling by itself becomes an accused party in the courtroom."

"I'm not making a sex film. I agree that sex sells. But I'm extremely reluctant to enter bedrooms in my films," said Varma. "'Sex Haazir Ho' enters the courtroom and not the bedroom."

He will begin filming the movie after the release later this year of his latest offering, "Nishabd" or "Wordless" in which Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan plays an aging romantic who falls in love with a teenager.

India remains largely conservative on sexual matters. Heterosexual couples rarely kiss in public and Indian movies began showing scenes where couples kiss only in the late 1990s. Homosexuality remains a taboo, and is rarely discussed openly.

Varma said the new movie was "about a fight for sexual freedom, where the enemy is not outside but within all of us who practice sexual hypocrisy."

Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, is home to Bollywood, India's prolific movie industry.