Honey Trehan to make his directorial debut from Lucknow

The New Year is set to start on a high note with ‘Talvar’ creative producer Honey Trehan making his directorial debut in Lucknow with ‘Raat Akeli Hai’. The film starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Aditya Srivastava and Ila Arun beside others will be shot in the state capital from January 21.

The film is a romantic thriller and has been written by Smita Singh, co-writer for web-series ‘Sacred Games’.

“It is a love story on the backdrop of crime world. This is Smita’s debut as film writer. She scripted ‘Sacred Games’ after writing our film but that came out first. Now this is all set to roll out in January,” he says.

Trehan has assisted filmmaker Vishal Bharadwaj in films like Makdee, Maqbool, Omkara, Kaminey and Matru…, and Abhishek Chaubey’s Dedh Ishqiya and Udta Punjab to name a few.

He was creative producer for ‘Talvar’ directed by Meghna Gulzar. He also launched his company MacGuffin Pictures in 2015 and produced their first venture ‘Death In Gunj’ directed by Konkona Sen.

“After ‘Death In Gunj’, I started a film with Rishi Kapoor and Juhi Chawla which we were shooting in Delhi but due to actor’s heath issues we have put it on hold. ‘Sonchiraiya’ is our next production which my partner Abhishek (Chaubey) has directed and it has Sushant Singh Rajput, Manoj Bajpai and Bhumi Padnekar. Produced by Ronnie Screwvala, the film will release on February 8,” he says.

He hails from Allahabad.

“Till Class 7 I was living in Tarn Taran (Punjab) and thereafter I came to my mother’s hometown Allahabad. I have done my graduation from AU and then moved to Delhi for theatre. I worked closely with National School of Drama though I am not its pass-out. My guru is Barry John. Thereafter, I started directing plays when I worked with Piyush Mishra and got to meet Vishalji (Bharadwaj). Since then I have been with him in various capacities in the direction team.”

The film will be shot in both Lucknow and Kanpur.

“My story is based and set in these two cities and in the film too they will be named as original location. From start-to-end, the entire shoot will be done here. We have a long schedule of two months. We are also casting a lot of actors from Uttar Pradesh and the selection process for that is on,” says the film maker who has also been casting director for several films including Raees, Fukrey, Hindi Medium and upcoming film Shuddhi.