Dev Patel to play mathematics genius Ramanujan

Cannes: `Slumdog Millionaire` star Dev Patel is all set to play Indian mathematics genius Srinivasa Ramanujan in a biopic, to be directed by Matthew Brown. ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan’ will see Patel portray Ramanujam, who made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory and infinite series. Born in a rural village in Tamil Nadu in 1887, Ramanujan was a self taught mathematician. He spent so much of his time thinking about mathematics that he flunked twice in his college. In 1912-1913, he sent samples of his theorems to three academics at the University of Cambridge. G H Hardy recognised his brilliance and invited him to visit and work with him at Cambridge. Ramanujan became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He died at the age of 32 in 1920. Brown wrote the script on Ramanujan. The film will be produced by Edward R Pressman and Indian producer Prashita Chaudhary`s Cinemorphic Entertainment Company, which is behind Danis Tanovic`s project starring Emraan Hashmi. Prashita is currently in Cannes as the co-producer of Ari Folman`s `The Congress`, which opened the Directors` Fortnight. The part-animation and part live-action film stars Robin Wright, Paul Giamatti, Jon Hamm, Harvey Keitel, Danny Huston and Frances Fisher. It is adapted from the sci-fi novel `The Futurological Congress` by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. PTI