Feature film on 1984 riots to hit screens

CANNES: A feature film based on the real life story of a Sikh family’s struggle to survive during the 1984 riots is ready to hit the screens soon.

Titled ’31 October’, the movie directed by National Award-winning filmmaker Shivaji Lotan Patil, will have Soha Ali Khan and Vir Das in the cast, according to its Delhi-based producer Harry Sachdeva.”It is the story of a Sikh couple and their two children as it happens on the day of assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,” says Sachdeva, who has also written the story and script of the film.

”The film shows how the Hindu friends of the couple make a plan for their rescue,” he adds.

The film, which is set for a worldwide release in September, tells the story of how the three friends risked their lives to save the Sikh family on the night of the aftermath of the assassination and the start of the anti-Sikh riots.”My family went through the same trauma during the riots,” says Sachdeva, a Sikh himself.

”I grew up listening to the same stories,” he adds.Patil, who has directed ’31 October’, which is in post-production, had won the Best Director National Award in 2012 for the Marathi film ‘Dhag’.

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It took two years of research to discover the ‘right narrative’ for the film, according to Sachdeva. The story of the real-life couple, an engineer with the state power utility company and an architect, and their children was narrated to the producer during the research into the film.”The assassination and the riots is an important chapter in the history of India,” says Sachdeva.The film will have simultaneous release in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Dubai.

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