Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rasika Duggal don retro looks for Nandita Das’ Manto. See pic

The troika of actors Rasika Dugal, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and director Nandita Das are headed to the prestigious Cannes Film Festival where their film, Manto, will be screened in the Un Certain Regard category. The film’s makers shared a new still from the film where we see Siddiqui as the writer Saadat Haasan Manto and Duggal as his wife Safia during their younger days.

Directed by Nandita Das, Manto is being premiered at the 71st Cannes Film Festival and is also competing in the Un Certain Regard section.

Nawazuddin plays the celebrated Urdu poet while Rasika essays the role of his wife, Safia Manto in the film. Ismat Chughtai, Manto’s friend and another radical thinker, will be essayed by Rajshri Deshpande. Tahir Raj Bhasin will be seen as the 1940’s Bollywood star, Shyam Chaddha - who was Manto’s confidant and inspiration for a number of stories he penned.

Talking about the film, Nandita had earlier said, “It is an independent film, not a typical Bollywood song and dance film. We don’t have a big budget so we can’t stretch it (the shooting) till 200 days. We will try to shoot it as fast as we can, in a very efficient way.”

Checkout a poster of the film:

Follow @htshowbiz for more