By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 4 Apr: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, who was the Chief Guest and a panelist at the concluding session of the Dehradun Literature Festival, today, also released the poster of an upcoming Hindi Film, Tiraha, which is based on the Uttarakhand Statehood Movement and the sacrifices of the people during the agitation. The poster was released in the presence of renowned lyricist Prasoon Joshi, Bollywood film director Ali Abbas Zafar and Actor Satish Sharma on the stage.
The film is being produced by South Indian producer and actor Shreyall Shetty. Shetty is a leading Mangalore based businessman who also is an acclaimed actor in Southern Cinema and has now also turned a producer. He has acted in highly successful films like ‘The Villain’ and ‘Yuvaratna’, and a Bollywood movie Sanak, with renowned actors like Vidyut Jammwal. Presently, he has started his Production House known as ‘ZaShe Multimedia’ along with his partner, Neil Wilson Zacharias, another entrepreneur from Mangalore. Tiraha is being produced by him along with Samraant Virmani.
Varun Prabhudayal Gupta will direct the film. This will be the second directorial venture of Gupta with Shetty after Jeena Abhi Baaki, which was presented by leading Bollywood Director Imtiaz Ali.
Speaking about the upcoming film, Gupta disclosed that the upcoming film was a result of in-depth research undertaken for over three years and a half by him. He added that, during the course of his research, he had visited the High Court as well as the CBI office and met the people who were victimised during the agitation and their families.
It may be recalled that Director Varun Prabhudayal Gupta is from Dehradun and has created a niche e for himself as a director in Bollywood. Starting his career as a media professional, he has been an Ad film Director. He had also bagged India Today’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Radio Mirchi Award and Outlook Campaign of the Year Award. He has been a part of the curation of a lot of non-fiction television shows as a Director & Creative Director. His recent work as a director and curator is going around the world records and other international platforms where he curated ‘Guzar Jaayega’ with Amitabh Bachchan and 155 artists during the pandemic, ‘Aankde’ and ‘Zaroorat’ with actors Shatrughan Sinha and Sonakshi Sinha and Member of Parliament Sonal Mansingh, and Dr Kiran Bedi. His upcoming project, which he directed for Imtiaz Ali, ‘Jeena Abhi Baaki Hai’ is all about women empowerment and motivating women to take a stand and not get subjected by any sort of gender biases.
Varun, the Director, wishes to make this an international film and he wishes to have the charismatic Dev Patel for the film. The film will be picturised in Muzaffarnagar (Rampur Tiraha – where a large number of agitationists were shot by the administration during the days of the agitation), Dehradun, Mussoorie, Roorkee and other places in Uttarakhand and London.
