 "Bandar: How Anurag Kashyap's drama starring Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad sheds light on India's MeToo movement")
The buzz coming out of Toronto Film Festival is that the acclaimed filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s latest directorial venture “Bandar”, written by Sudip Sharma & Abhishek Banerjee, starring Bobby Deol and Sanya Malhotra, has created quite a stir. This reveal came along with the screening of the film selection at its world premiere at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival. The film was hailed as Anurag Kashyap’s most raw, hard-hitting, and controversial film at TIFF this year.
What the film is about
Kashyap’s drama starring Bobby Deol , Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad sheds light on India’s MeToo movement. Bandar shows Deol a celebrity and how he’s embroiled in sexual harassment and rape after allegations by his girlfriend turn his life topsy turvy.
The idea came from a true story, but we obviously had to navigate very thin lines,” Kashyap told Variety. “You don’t know who’s right, who’s wrong. There was rampant misuse of new laws, cases of one woman filing eight different cases in eight different police stations with the help of a lawyer and a policeman.”
Anurag Kashyap added, “As a filmmaker, diverse stories attract me,” Dwivedi says. “As much as possible for me, I try to avoid differentiating between them as commercial or offbeat. This subject fascinated me.”
There was a case of a man who came out of prison after 32 years and was declared innocent, but his case never came up for 32 years. That’s an entire lifetime,” Kashyap revealed.
The film not only made the audience uneasy with its messaging but also raised questions about the fair treatment of the law towards men in particular.
The film also has Sanya Malhotra in a pivotal role and has delivered a heart-rending performance. She has embodied her role with conviction, justifying her presence in this intense drama. Meanwhile, Saba Azad takes on the role of a young, fierce woman and portrays it with striking authenticity on screen. Sapna Pabbi is a revelation only to be experienced in the film and to talk about her role now may be giving too much away about the film.