Nawazuddin to be Nandita Das’ Manto

Independent Hindi cinema's reigning poster boy Nawazuddin Siddiqui has been penciled in to play the titular character in Nandita Das' Indo-French co-production ‘Manto’.

This was formally revealed by the director on the sidelines of the 69th Cannes Film Festival. Nawazuddin has already done costume tests for the role of the celebrated writer who left an indelible imprint on Urdu literature in a short-lived but brilliant career.

The funding of the film, being produced among others by Vivek Kajaria of Mumbai-based Holy Basil Productions, is in place and talks are on to put together the crew."I have had Nawazuddin in mind from the very outset," says Nandita Das, who is in Cannes to freeze plans for the shoot expected to take place in Mumbai and Lahore around the end of the year.

"But in India, economics always interferes with art and there was pressure on me to cast a more mainstream star," she adds. "But I absolutely need the kind of nuances and depth that only Nawazuddin can deliver."

Das says that her ‘Manto’ is neither a big Bollywood film nor a small independent film. "We have to recreate Mumbai and Lahore of the 1950s and that demands a certain budget," she says.

The film will cover a period of seven years between 1946 and 1952, which was an important phase in the history of the subcontinent," says Das.