Petta Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui who is currently on a roll with the success of his films such as Petta and Manto. The who stars as Saadat Haasan Manto in “Manto” — an Indian film that is not getting released in Pakistan — says society continues to remain stubborn in its reluctance to accept the bitter truth. As the film has not got the green light for release, writers, activists, and journalists got together last week to protest in different cities of Pakistan. While “Manto” director Nandita Das has expressed gratitude to the supporters.
Nawazuddin stated that “The majority of the society has not grown up intellectually to embrace the truth. That is why we are still living in the same society and stuck in time. That is why what Saadat Hassan Manto faced in his time is still the reality. The problems are still existing and his story is still relevant.”Manto”, which is a biopic, released in India in September last year, features Rasika Dugal, Divya Dutta, Paresh Rawal, and Rishi Kapoor. “Manto” traveled to several international film festivals like Cannes and Toronto, but did not fare well at the Indian box office.
Nawazuddin who is determined to be a part of such stories in the future states that “Initially, when the film released in India, since we did not get a good number of screens and audience reach, I was upset. Later when the film released digitally and the response started pouring in, I was glad that the film got a great shelf life on Netflix, and we did a good job. We gained confidence, Few stories are so compelling that when a filmmaker is ready to tell the unadulterated version of it on the big screen, as an actor you feel excited to do such a film. Of course, “Manto” was one of such project and I will be doing such films in coming days,” Nawazuddin will next be seen in “Thackeray” as late Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray.
