7 years of ‘Shahid’: Hansal Mehta, Rajkummar Rao walk down memory lane

Mumbai: Filmmaker Hansal Mehta and his leading man Rajkummar Rao on Sunday celebrated seven years of their 2013 biographical drama “Shahid” with a series of pictures from the movie.

The critically-acclaimed film is based on the life of lawyer and human rights activist, Shahid Azmi, who was assassinated in 2010 in Mumbai.

“Shahid” had its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival 2012 to great audience response.

Walking down memory lane, Mehta shared a series of pictures of Rao as the slain lawyer from the film and wrote, “7 Years of #Shahid.”

Rao, who won the National Award for his performance in the titular role, retweeted the photos shared by the director and tagged members of the film”s cast and crew on the microblogging site.

Writer Apurva Asrani said he feels grateful to have been part of “Shahid”, a film that was a career turnaround for many team members.

“Though it released in cinemas on October 18th 2013, #Shahid had screened at prestigious film festivals, including @TIFF_NET, for over a year & had garnered a terrific response. ”Shahid” made many of us relevant again. On #7YearsOfShahid, love & gratitude to @mehtahansal & the team,” Asrani said.

Actor Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, who played Shahid”s brother Arif Azmi in the film, retweeted Asrani”s tweet.

Frequent collaborators Mehta and Rao have worked together on critically acclaimed films like “Citylights”, “Aligarh”, and “Omerta”. Their next project is a comedy-drama “Chhalaang”, a marked departure from their previous hard-hitting movies.

“Chhalaang”, slated to start streaming on Amazon Prime Video from November 13, also stars Ayyub, Satish Kaushik, Nushrat Bharucha, Saurabh Shukla and Ila Arun.