Kashmiri film Hamid wins two honours at 66th National awards

After having received a lot of critical acclaim, director Aijaz Khan’s Hamid (2019) has won two honours at the 66th National awards which were announced yesterday.

The Yoodlee Films production won the National award for Best Urdu Film while its lead actor Talha Arshad Reshi was declared Best Child Actor. The film also stars Rasika Dugal in an important role.

Sharing his excitement, Khan said in an official statement, “I am absolutely thrilled by this win. This film has been very close to my heart and I can’t begin to express how happy this makes me. I’m very grateful to the entire team that helped bring this film together and my parents and family.”

The filmmaker, however, wasn’t able to reach out to Reshi because all communication with and in Jammu & Kashmir has been severed since the central government scrapped articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution last Monday.

“This win for me has been bittersweet because we have not been able to reach the hero of my film, the wonderful Talha, as phone lines are jammed in Kashmir. It is his moment of glory and I wish I could share it with him right now,” said Khan. 

Producer Siddharth Anand Kumar of Yoodlee Films added that making the film was a challenge. “Hamid is an extremely relevant and sensitive film with a message of hope and peace in our conflicted times. It was a tough film to make and the recognition by the national awards jury is vindication of the hard work put in by each and every cast and crew member of Hamid. We at Yoodlee strive to make films that will stand the test of time and hopefully Hamid will be one of those,” he said. 

Hamid told the story of an eight-year-old Kashmiri boy (Reshi) whose father (Sumit Kaul) goes missing one night after he is picked up by the security forces. Later, Hamid develops a sweet and unusual relationship with a paramilitary force jawan (Vikas Kumar) on, ironically, the phone. Dugal played Hamid’s mother.