Legendary Indian lyricist and director Gulzar’s film Libaas will release this year, it has been announced.
The movie, made in 1988, has been languishing in the archives of the Directorate of Film Festivals.
Zee Classic, with its new segment called Woh Zamaana Kare Deewana (Crazy About That Era), on Friday announced the theatrical release of the movie.
The plot of the film, which features veteran actors such as Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, is based on Gulzar’s own short story Seema from his Raavi Paar collection.
The story revolves around theatre director Sudhir (Shah) and his actress wife Seema (Azmi). Their life appears picture perfect, but appearances are often deceptive in the world of showbusiness.
The movie also features Raj Babbar, Sushma Seth, Utpal Dutt, Annu Kapoor and Savita Bajaj.
The music has been composed by one of Gulzar’s frequent collaborators, R D Burman.
Libaas was produced by Vikas Mohan, whose dream will be realised by his sons Amul Vikas Mohan and Anshul Vikas Mohan.
Amul said: “I’m lucky to be a part of this project. It couldn’t be released at that time for some reason. This was my father’s life-long dream and I’m happy it’s finally coming true.”
“The film will be in theatres by the end of this year. We will announce the release date in a few weeks, after further discussion,” he added.
The film will be distributed by Zee Studios in India.
Libaas was shown at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa after a gap of 22 years on November 22, 2014. It was also screened at the International Film Festival at Bangalore in January 1992.
Gulzar, who celebrated his 83rd birthday on August 18, is one of the most prominent and prolific names in Hindi cinema. Besides being a successful poet and lyricist, he had an active career as a director that began with Mere Apne in 1971.
He later went on to direct classics such as Parichay, Aandhi, Mausam and Angoor.
He stopped directing films to concentrate on his writing and translating Rabindranath Tagore’s work but he is still very active as a lyricist and won the Oscar for Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire.
