Mantostaan trailer: Gory stories of violence and partition

The first trailer of Rahat Kazmi’s Mantostaan was released online on Saturday and it is creating a lot of buzz - #MantostaanTrailer is one of the top trending topics in Twitter India.

Mantostaan is a dark satire that portrays four stories on India-Pakistan partition from the legendary writer Sadat Hasan Manto’s works. The stories are: Khol Do, Thanda Gosht, Assignment and Aakhiri Salute.

Kazmi has earlier made films like Identity Card (2014) and Dekh Bhai Dekh: Laughter Behind Darkness (2009).

The three-minute long trailer opens with Pt Jawaharlala Nehru’s Freedom at Midnight speech and moves on to violence in different forms and at various places - borders, streets, houses and even bedrooms.

The film opened at Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes and was later screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Melbourne Film Festival last year. It was also screened at the NFDC Film Bazaar 2016, which was held on the sidelines of International Film Festival of India in Goa in November last year. It was also screened at the British Library during the London Asian Film Festival on March 16.

Watch the trailer here:

Starring Sonal Sehgal, Shoib Nikash Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Virendra Saxena, Raina Basnet, Sakhi Bhat, Tariq Khan and Rahat Kazmi in lead roles, the film is slated to hit theatres on May 5.

Speaking about his film, Rahat said in a press statement, “It was something we believed it, it was something we knew we just had to do, but we didn’t know how it would be received. We did feel like we were courting controversy when we were making this film but then we had none other than Manto’s daughter come to us and show her faith and her happiness towards what we are doing.”

Sources have told Hindustan Times that Manto’s daughters are looking forward to having the film release in Pakistan, while Kazmi has expressed hopes that they are allowed to visit India for the film’s premiere.

“It is a huge honour for us to have Manto’s family support our film. I have been in awe of his work, for as long as I can remember and to have his kin show support, it doesn’t get bigger than this. If the administration permits, it would be wonderful if we can get them to come for the premiere here,” Kazmi said.

Produced by Rahat Kazmi films, Tariq Khan Films and Aaditya Pratap Singh Entertainment, Mantostaan is presented by Jitesh Kumar films & UFI Production in association with Paylesser.