Was a success on the international circuit.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: Nitin Kakkar’s ‘Fimistaan’ which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi in the 60th National Film Awards in 2012, is to release in theaters this Friday.
The film had received worldwide acclaim. Besides the National Film Award, ‘Filmistaan’ was successful in bagging awards in Busan International Film Festival, Delhi International Film Festival, Jaipur International Film Festival, International Film Festival of Kerala, and the 10th Indian Film Festival in Stuttgart.
The film is the story of Sunny, played by newcomer Sharib Hashmi. Sunny is a Bollywood buff who relentlessly goes for auditions of advertisements and films all across Mumbai. However, he is thrown out at every turn. His fate takes him to Rajasthan to help an American crew shoot some documentaries in the remote parts of the state. Things do not go his way as one day he is kidnapped by an Islamic terrorist group out of Pakistan. He is sheltered in the house of a Pakistani who frequently travels across borders to smuggle pirated Bollywood films. Soon enough, Aftab and Sunny realise that they have a common ground that binds them together: cinema. The film shows how cinema can be the link to universal brotherhood.
The film’s director Kakkar is a first timer in feature films. Earlier he used to work on TV. He has worked on the horror show ‘Sssshh… Phir Koi Hai’ as an assistant director and as a second unit director. The film’s lead actor Sharib had previously had small roles in the Oscar Winning Slumdog Millionaire and Yash Chopra’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan.
The film took a unique way to promote the film. The cast and crew of the film hired an old bus and took it all over Mumbai to the houses of famous film stars. The list of the stars whose houses the bus went to included Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Rekha and Salman Khan.
Bachchan was in particular praise of the film. He wrote on twitter, “’Filmistaan’…the film on release…cinema in its bountiful glory. Just saw it… films bind they do not divide… love is power!”