MUMBAI: Amitabh Bachchan will play Rabindranath Tagore in a biopic temporarily titled Sound of Silence.

The film is being made to coincide with the 150th birth anniversary of the Nobel Laureate poet.

The English film to be directed by Ujjwal Chatterjee will have screenplay by noted lyricist Javed Akhtar. The film will focus on the last 20 years of Tagore‘s life.

Confirming that he will write the screenplay and the dialogues, Akhtar said that the film will be based on a story to be prepared jointly by scholars William Radice and Nilanjan Bandyopadhyay. "This is an extremely serious project and I will start writing the screenplay and dialogues after I get the research material from scholars working at archives in Santiniketan and elsewhere. I will have to study each detail carefully because I will be handling an icon like Tagore," Akhtar added.