Director Santosh Sivan on the set of Before The Rains Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

That Santosh Sivan, an Indian director, is behind the camera separates this production from other films over the last fifty years that have been set in the twilight of the British Empire in India. "The fact that you have got an Indian director, someone from that culture, telling the story makes it different," says Roache. "It is not David Lean [director of A Passage to India] so you don't have that layer of interpretation happening. I think that it is pretty direct and straight. It is a real cross-cultural mix. You have an authentic sense of the British; you have an authentic sense of the Indian. And even the fact that we have made this film with Western producers [Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding] and an Indian production company, it makes it a real collaboration."

Although the film is presented by James Ivory, Before the Rains "doesn't have that love of detail of the British way of life [so often explored by Merchant Ivory productions]," says Jennifer Ehle. Bose echoes the sentiments of both his co-stars: "It has not been shot like an epic. With the David Lean films, with due apology, the epic was number one and the story was number two. It was absolutely by design. You were meant to come away with the scope and scale. But with Before the Rains, you will walk away talking about the people you met in this movie and the moral dilemma in this movie. It doesn't say: 'Look at me! You're watching an epic.' It is a very intimate film shot by one of the finest cinematographers on earth in one of the most beautiful places on earth. If you look at it, it is very restrained in its cinematography. Anyone else would have gone berserk in Kerala, and reduced the actors to two silhouetted figures in long shot."

Before the Rains is loosely based on an Israeli short film entitled Yellow Asphalt that producer Doug Mankoff showed to Sivan, who then decided to relocate the story to Kerala. Shooting the film in the hills and jungle forests of southern India was a familiar yet inspiring experience for the leads of the film. Roache, who had previously visited India many times, hadn't spent much time in the south or in Kerala before. "I had only been to Kerala very briefly so this was a new experience to be up in the hills for that amount of time. I had been there when I was 16 years old. My mum was an actress was in The Jewel in the Crown, and [later] I went many times out of my own interest. I traveled quite a bit and then went back to do this other movie. So something keeps pulling me back." Roache describes the location, with its "valleys and sweeping mountains with these dramatic hillsides and emerald tea plantations," as the most beautiful place he has ever been. Co-star Rahul Bose had visited Kerala before but never filmed there, and emphasizes that, along with Rajasthan, it is one of the most visited places in India. Director Santosh Sivan, he notes, is a huge star in Kerala: "You have to understand that when they make a movie they put [Sivan's] face on the billboards — not the actor. Santos' fame in the state of Kerala is unrivaled."

Rahul Bose in Before The Rains Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Although they are both huge stars in India, Sivan and Bose had previously never met or worked together: "He comes from the south of India; I am from Bombay," says Bose. "Our paths have never crossed. When this film came about, he approached me to do this and I think it was on the strength of a couple of other pieces of work of mine that he had seen. My character, T.K., is a South Indian villager. And I am as urban as they get, and as Westernized Indian as you get. So this was a huge leap for him to [believe that I] could pull it off." Yet Bose was almost never cast. "The producers wanted me to audition," he recalls. "And I said: 'I don't do auditions. I have never done them and I never will do them'. So I refused the role. Then my manager pleaded with me. She said: 'Put yourself on tape for two minutes, please.' And I was like: 'Fuck that. I don't want to do this shit. I don't want to make it anywhere in Hollywood. I don't care. I am really happy doing the work I do in India.' One day before shooting, I got the cinematographer of the movie I was working on to put me on tape. They felt T.K. should be played by a younger actor. So I know that they must have looked at about 50 actors. Then they saw my work. And the rest," he smiles, "is sordid history."