Good news for those who are waiting for Sarmad Khoosat’s directorial Zindagi Tamasha. There is hope that the film will release this summer.
Zindagi Tamasha has a tumultuous journey of its own. It was originally scheduled to be released in 2020. The film never saw the light of day as it got embroiled in all sorts of disputes due to its content, which was preconceived to be controversial.
After becoming Pakistan’s official submission for Oscars for the 93rd Academy Awards and receiving international recognition by winning several accolades, the film was approved for release in Pakistan on March 18th, 2022. Sarmad Khoosat later confirmed that the release of the film has been postponed yet again.
Read: Censor board bans third film of the year with Iram Parveen Bilal’s ‘I’ll Meet You There’
Since then, there was no update but now we’ve news that it’s future will be decided after Eid ul Fitr.
Producer, film distributor, and owner of Madviwalla Entertainment, Nadeem Mandviwalla recently spoke to Something Haute and shared:
“We will finalize the date of release of Zindagi Tamasha after Eid. Probably, by the end of May.”
Ayesha Omar and Shamoon Abbasi’s Dhai Chaal and Saba Qamar’s Kamli are already scheduled to be released in June 2022. Zindagi Tamasha would prove to be a good addition to the list of films which will not have big Eid releases. Let’s hope that the film will finally release on big screen without further delays or glitches.
A still from Zindagi Tamasha
Written by Nirmal Bano and directed by Sarmad Khoosat, Zindagi Tamasha features Arif Hassan, Samiya Mumtaz, Eman Suleman and Ali Kureshi in the lead. The film is centred around a naat khwan Rahat Khawaja (played by Arif Hassan) and his family who are outcast from the society when a secret from Khawaja’s personal life is leaked.
In 2020, the Central Board of Film Censors postponed the release of the film due to several objections and countrywide protests against its screening. Later, Covid-19 pandemic made matters worse for cinemas across Pakistan. However, we saw a glimmer of hope in July when the Senate Committee on Human Rights approved Zindagi Tamasha for screening. The film has won the Kim Ji-Seok Award at the prestigious Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, the Snow Leopard Award for Best Film and also won two accolades at the 6th Annual Asian World Film Festival.
While we can only pray for Zindagi Tamasha’s success, Sarmad has already released the teaser trailer of his next film, Kamli that stars Saba Qamar, Hamza Khawaja, Sania Saeed, Nimra Bucha, Omair Rana, Adeel Afzal and Iman Shahid. It will be releasing in theatres across Pakistan on June 3rd, 2022.
