Shot in Valley, award-winning film set for release

M Aamir Khan

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, January 29

After its New York premiere last month, an award-winning film shot in Kashmir, ‘Half Widow’, is gearing up for a countrywide release in March. The makers of the film are also having a special screening of the movie here in February with an aim to revive cinema in the Kashmir valley.

“Unfortunately, there are no theatres here (in Kashmir) but we will have a special premiere at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre on the banks of the Dal Lake in February. We hope it helps towards reviving cinema in Kashmir. We are also working towards releasing the film across India in March,” said director Danish Renzu, a Kashmiri filmmaker.

Shot in the Valley, ‘Half Widow’ has Kashmiri actors in the main roles and has won accolades at several film festivals. Renzu said it won the ‘Audience Choice-Best Feature Film’ award at the last South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF).

He said ‘Half Widow’ was about women empowerment and it was a breathtaking tale of a Kashmiri woman whose happy life takes a drastic turn as her husband disappears and her brother loves and protects her in her struggle as a half widow.

The film has Neelofar Hamid in the lead role and it also stars well-known Bollywood actor of Kashmiri origin Mir Sarwar. Sarwar-starrer ‘Kashmir Daily’ had become the first made-in-Kashmir film to see a countrywide release earlier this month after more than four decades.

Renzu said he was hopeful that the film would encourage young filmmakers and actors of the Valley and help in reviving cinema. The cinema halls in the Valley were shut soon after eruption of militancy around 28 years back.

Renzu’s ‘In search of America InshAllah’ – shot in Los Angeles – had received critical acclaim at the Cannes, CAAM, Noor Iranian Film Festival and various other film festivals. Renzu is also working on a feature film set in Kashmir titled ‘Pashmina’.