National Award winner Suman Mukhopadhyay’s next to premiere at Busan Film Festival

National Award-winning filmmaker Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Hindi feature film,

Nazarband

, will premiere at the 25th

Busan International Film Festival

, which will be held between October 21 and 30, both offline and online. Inspired by Bengali writer

Ashapurna Devi

’s short story, the film marks actress Indira Tiwari’s debut. The National School of Drama pass-out will also be seen in Sudhir Mishra’s and

Sanjay Leela Bansali

’s next films. In this film, she plays Vasanti opposite Tanmay Dhanania who plays Chandu. They’re jailbirds and the story encapsulates their journey across Kolkata. The film premieres on October 28.

Director Suman Mukhopadhyay, who has helmed films like Herbert, Asamapta, Posham Pa, and Kangal Malsat, says, “Nazarband is essentially a love story between two disparate underdog characters, Vasanti and Chandu. The unlikely pair of the two jailbirds embarks on a harrowing and unpredictable odyssey drifting across the intimidating terrain of Kolkata. And the film is a visceral look at their resilience and how they navigate different kinds of oppression. It is a heartfelt exploration into the depths of companionship and the meaning of rejection and acceptance. The way I shot this film, it was impossible to have made it with a known cast. We were on the roads without any security team or vanity vans. It would have been a different film without Tanmay and Indira. Or even without Kate Mcdonough, the cinematographer. The times are changing, the audience is changing. People are looking for new faces and good actresses and actors. I still believe in a film, rather than its star cast.”

Apart from this film, Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s next and Emraan Hashmi’s Harami are headed to the festival. “I am not nervous, I strongly believe in my film. But I am immensely excited to be in Busan, one of the premier festivals internationally. It is big and a great showcase of world cinema,” Suman sums up.



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