Eros Interna- tional’s ‘Aligarh’, he latest film from National award-winning filmmaker Hansal Mehta, has been selected as the opening film at the 17th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival to be held in Mumbai from October 29 to November 5 . This pivotal film marks the first time that a Hindi film will open the festival since 1997, the inaugural year of the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. Set in a small town in Uttar Pradesh from which the film takes its name, ‘Aligarh’ is the story of a professor (Manoj Bajpayee) fired for his sexuality and a young journalist (Rajkummar Rao) who tells his story to the world.
Aligarh has also been selected to screen at the 20th Busan International Film Festival in South Korea and the 59th BFI London Film Festival, this October.
Hansal Mehta’s illustrious career began in television, where he directed the cooking show Khana Khazana (1993–2000) starring Sanjeev Kapoor. He is best known for his moving biopic Shahid in 2013. The film, starring Rajkummar Rao, chronicles the life of Shahid Azmi, a human rights lawyer murdered in 2010.
