Mantostaan trailer: Rahat Kazmi's raw film brings to life Manto's four Partition stories

Apart from Nandita Das’ Manto which stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the titular role, another film on the renowned Urdu writer called Mantostaan is set to release this May. The trailer provides a glimpse into how the realistic stories written by Saadat Hasan Manto are portrayed in a raw and gritty manner in the film. [caption id=“attachment_3394508” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from Mantostaan’s trailer. Screengrab from Facebook[/caption] Jawaharlal Nehru’s iconic speech India’s Tryst with Destiny plays in the background as we see shots of people’s horrified faces and hear the sounds of swords and screams. The film is based on four stories written by Manto — Khol Do, Thanda Ghosht, Aakhri Salute and Assignment. The title of the film translates to ‘Manto’s world’. The world premier of Mantostaan was at Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes, and it was also screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival, London Asian Film Festival and the Melbourne Film Festival in 2016. In a press statement, director Rahat Kazmi said, “It was something we believed it, it was something we knew we just had to do, but we didn’t know how it would be received. We did feel like we were courting controversy when we were making this film but then we had none other than Manto’s daughter come to us and show her faith and her happiness towards what we are doing.” The film stars Sonal Sehgal, Shoib Nikash Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Virendra Saxena, Raina Basnet, Sakhi Bhat, Tariq Khan and Rahat Kazmi. Kazmi has made Identity Card and Dekh Bhai Dekh: Laughter Behind Darkness in the past. Mantostaan releases on 5 May, 2017. Watch the trailer here: