Rajkummar Rao and Hansal Mehta are a winning team and no, we are not saying this because one is a well-known actor and the other is an acclaimed director but for the fact that the duo have managed to collaborate on four films in the past and all of them have been highly revered. Now, the duo is coming back together for the fifth time in a film tentatively titled Swagat Hain. The actor-director has previously worked in National Award-winning biographical- drama Shahid in 2013, CityLights (2014), Aligarh (2015) and the upcoming Omerta.
Mehta confirmed the news and told a leading daily, “Yes, we are doing this film together and looking forward to it. Swagat Hain makes a strong statement about freedom of expression, hypocrisy and exploitation of women at the workplace and in personal spaces. It is a little early to reveal any more details on the subject as we are still developing the script. All I can say is that it is inspired by true-life incidents and we are doing something completely new this time.”
Mehta further added that he has been working on the idea of the film for almost a year now. He said, “I have been discussing the concept with Raj and we have always wanted to do this film together. He is a terrific actor and working with him has always been a pleasure. When we were doing the web series Bose: Dead/Alive and while travelling for its promotions, we were constantly discussing ideas for our next collaboration, which is when we stumbled upon this one.”
Mehta is also awaiting the release of his film Omerta which was supposed to release on April 20, 2018, but has been pushed to a May 4, 2018, date. The film is based on Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh, the British terrorist of Pakistani descent who killed Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl. Regarding the release of the film, Mehta said, “The film had gone to the Examining Committee of the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) and they asked for too many cuts which wasn’t acceptable to us. So, we reached out to the Revising Committee and it was finally passed with only two cuts which we have adhered to. The film is now ready to release.”
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On the other hand, Rajkummar is busy wrapping up Shelly Chopra Dhar’s directorial debut Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga which also features Sonam Kapoor and Anil Kapoor. He also has Amar Kaushik’s horror-comedy Stree in the pipeline with Shraddha Kapoor. He will soon start shooting with Kangana Ranaut for Mental Hai Kya.
