Richa Chadha meets Shakeela, begins shooting for her biopic

After stepping into play Paro in Daas Dev (2017), an actress Richa Chadha's latest film is a biopic on south actress Shakeela, born as C Shakeela Begum. Shakeela made her film debut in Play Girls (1995) as Silk Smitha's younger sister. She rose to fame in the south, acting in over 100 films in the Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada industries. Her overnight stardom and continued success makes for a compelling story onscreen.

Chadha recently met Shakeela for the first time in Bangalore to get know the southern star. They spent a lot of time together and Shakeela shared details of her career with Chadha. The Masaan (2015) actress was the first choice to play Shakeela in the biopic. The meeting between the reel and real star would have inspired Chadha before the film began shooting.

Directed by Indrajit Lankesh, the biopic is under production in Thirthahalli, a small village in the southern state of Karnataka.

The actress has been sharing candid shots of her Karnataka surroundings on Instagram. The yet untitled biopic is due to be released in 2019.