India will see the first Kashmiri film in 40 years. But Kashmir Daily will not be screened in Kashmir valley, in the absence of cinema halls.
Mir Sarwar, who plays the lead in the film, told the media that by releasing the film outside the Kashmir valley they want to make a point that “we can tell our own stories and cannot hide behind the excuse that we don’t have cinema halls to tell our stories”.
The film, according to him, touches on the issues of drug addiction and unemployment and includes a character who is a Kashmir-based journalist. The film has been made in two languages, “Hindustani” and Kashmiri, according to the filmmaker. Based on the story of a journalist, the first Kashmir-based film, which got a U-certificate from the censor board, will be released at various move halls in all the metros.
In Kashmir Daily, Kashmiri origin Bollywood actor Mir Sarwar Ahmad plays the lead. He has acted in many Bollywood films, including Bajrangi Bhaijaan.
Talking to the media, Mir said that the state government or any other business house did not help him in the making of the film. They were forced to have short schedules and due to that, the film took three years to complete. The film is written, produced and directed by Hussein Khan and it would be the first Kashmiri film which would be released in all the big cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata.
The two-and-a-half-hour film has been shot mostly in Kashmir and has some local artistes. Filmmaking in Kashmir is new as there has been no such activity in the past three decades due to militancy. Currently, Kashmir has no local film industry. It was in 1972 that the last Kashmiri film, Shayar-e-Kashmir Mehjoor hit the cinema halls. Local filmmakers in the past two decades have tried to make films like Partav (Light) and Akh Daleel Looluch (A Tale of Love), but they could not get them released in the rest of the country.