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Meghna Gulzar to direct biopic on Indian Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw

Director Meghna Gulzar just delivered her latest success ‘Raazi’ (2018) at the box office. The film has done exceptionally well and has received much critical accolade. Now, Gulzar is ready to direct her next, a biopic on Sam Manekshaw, who was the first Indian Army Officer to be promoted to Field Marshal.

Gulzar says she leapt at the idea of bringing Manekshaw’s story to life, when the idea came up with producer Ronnie Screwvala. Gulzar told Mirror, “It’s bitter-sweet, moving from one film to the next, but it’s always a pleasure to tell a story that has grabbed your attention instinctively. The life that the Field Martial has lived is vast and rich so it’s quite daunting to be able to do justice to it in two hours on celluloid. Ronnie approached me sometime in 2015 saying that he wanted to work with me and I felt flattered because I look up to his work. We didn’t even have a subject back then but over conversations the idea of a film on Sam Manekshaw came up. I leapt at the idea. We are currently in the early stages of writing while research has been on for a year because it’s an exhaustive subject. I only started internalising the material when Raazi was going into post production. The film requires tremendous prep. One part of the film will be set in the era of the ’71 war which is fairly familiar for me right now (Raazi was set in the 1970s as well) but otherwise it’s a whole new world.”

Gulzar also added that she will be working with writers Bhavani Iyer and Shantanu Srivastava. Iyer also wrote the screenplay of ‘Raazi’ along with her.