Faraaz, Ariyippu, Meghdoot, All That Breathes lead Indian lineup at BFI London Film Festival

Hansal Mehta’s Faraaz will have its world premiere at the upcoming 66th BFI London Film Festival, leading an Indian lineup that includes the features Ariyippu, Meghdoot, and the award-winning documentary All That Breathes. The festival will take place from 5 - 16 October.

Faraaz, which stars Aditya Rawal and introduces Zahaan Kapoor, is based on a real incident, the 2016 terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Café in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It will screen in the Thrill section of the festival.

Produced by Anubhav Sinha's Benaras Media Works and Bhushan Kumar's T-Series, the film has been written by Ritesh Shah, Kashyap Kapoor and Raghav Kakkar.

Aditya is the son of veteran actor Paresh Pawal and previously acted in the Zee5 feature Bamfaad (2020). Zahaan is the grandson of Dadasaheb Phalke honoree Shashi Kapoor and filmmaker Ramesh Sippy. His father is Kunal Kapoor, who also acted in a few films and his mother is photographer Sheena Sippy.  

Shaunak Sen’s award-winning feature All That Breathes will compete in the documentary section. A strong contender for the upcoming Oscars in the Best Documentary category, All That Breathes tells the story of two brothers who run a bird hospital for injured black kites in New Delhi.

Filmmaker Mahesh Narayanan’s Ariyippu (Declaration) will screen in the Debate section of festival. Starring Kunchacko Boban and Divya Prabha, the drama in Malayalam, Hindi, and Tamil languages already had its world premiere at the 75th Locarno Film Festival where it screened in competition.

Rahat Mahajan’s Meghdoot (The Cloud Messenger) will screen in the Love section. Starring Ritvik Tyagi, Ahalya Shetty, and Raj Zutshi, the film is a coming-of-age tale set against a boarding school.

The English, Sanskrit, Malayalam-language film was screened at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR) earlier this year as the only Indian film in the Tiger Competition section. Mahajan’s film showcases the Indian dance forms of Kathakali, Theyyam and Kuttiyattam.

The award-winning Pakistani feature Joyland, directed by Saim Sadiq, is also competing at the festival. It will screen in the First Feature Competition. Sadiq’s film, starring Ali Junejo, Alina Khan, and Rasti Farooq, revolves around a conservative Pakistani family which falls apart when their younger married son falls for a transgender dancer.

Finally, Oscar winner Asif Kapadia’s latest Creature, based on choreographer Akram Khan’s 2021 stage production of the same name, will also make its world premiere at the upcoming festival.