Arun Karthick’s sophomore film Nasir has bagged the NETPAC Award for the best Asian film at Rotterdam 2020. According to screendaily.com, the filmmaker is “ready to fight and go to court to secure the uncensored release of the film in his home country [India]. The story charts the day in the life of a Muslim living in a predominantly Hindu city.”
French-Indian theatre director Koumarane Valavane plays the eponymous protagonist, a middle aged Muslim man who works in a Hindu owner’s sari shop. The film is set in Coimbatore, which is among the few places in TN where Hindu-Muslim relationships are considerably strained.
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Nasir is based on Dilip Kumar’s short story A Clerk’s Story. It has been adapted for the big screen by the author along with the director. Dilip, whose mother tongue is Gujarati is a well-known Tamil short story writer. Dilip’s story appeared in The Caravan in August 2012. Read it, here.
Produced by Mathivanan Rajendran, Reinier Selen, Ibo Karatay, Manoj Poosappan, Samir Sarkar, Anu Rangachar, Aditya Grover and Harsh Agarwal, it features cinematography by Saumyananda Sahi, Production design by Mausam Aggarwal. Arghya Basu has edited the film that also stars, Sudha Ragunathan, Yasmin Rahman, Sabari, Bakkiyam Sarikar
Watch the trailer here: