Pooja Bhatt's latest venture JISM is all set for release next week – January 17 – and the actress turned producer is more than excited about her new 'baby'. “With SUR, I was on my own. Making my own decisions. It was a learning experience. JISM was far more easy in that respect,” she tells me.

Made at a cost of Rs. 3.10 crores [Rs. 4 crores, inclusive of all publicity and marketing], JISM was shot in a start-to-finish schedule of 41 days in Pondicherry.

You may find this hard to believe, but the film was born during her stay in Pondicherry, when Pooja and editor-turned-director Amit Saxena suddenly chanced upon three streets and a hotel in the vicinity. “I told Amit that this had to be the setting for the film,” Pooja reveals.

With JISM, Pooja decided to go against the norms of Bollywood. “A lot of people felt that the role of the leading lady with shades of grey would go against the film. In normal context, a character like this would be labelled a vamp, not a heroine. But I felt that this aspect would stand out and prove to be the strong point of the film. Bipasha's character is the hero of the film, in my opinion.”

Pooja was also advised against using the black colour in the publicity campaign. “It's a bad omen, the wise suggested. But I wanted Bipasha to wear a black outfit and even the background had to be black. No other colour would do,” she laughs.

After a pause, she continues, “But Dad (Mahesh Bhatt) was very supportive throughout. He kept pushing me, advising me to do what I felt was right.”

Describing JISM as an “emotionally rich film”, Pooja states that the film has shaped up beyond her expectations. “The material is far deeper than what it was at the outset,” she says.

JISM tells the story of Kabir Lal (John Abraham), a restless, reckless and alcoholic lawyer whose steady race towards self-destruction even his close friends are unable to stop. A chance encounter with Sonia Khanna (Bipasha Basu) – a young, sexy and dangerously ambitious wife of a middle-aged industrialist Rohit Khanna (Gulshan Grover) – exposes Kabir to needs, emotions and areas of himself that he never encountered before… including crime.

The sexual chemistry between the couple intensifies with each encounter and blinds them to the point where they decide to get rid of Rohit together. The trouble in paradise begins when the murder plan is executed successfully and Sonia begins to take independent decisions.

Soon, Kabir finds himself a helpless victim at the hands of his conscience, circumstances and Sonia. Legal entanglements, moral apprehensions and mad, destructive passion towards possessing Sonia lead Kabir to his inevitable doom and ironically towards his redemption.

JISM is scripted by Mahesh Bhatt, has dialogues by Niranjan Iyengar and music by M.M. Kreem. Pooja Bhatt and Sujit Kumar Singh produce the film.