It is a great moment for International filmmaker Rahat Kazmi and his team as his film Lihaaf is attracting legendary film makers and producers from all over the world.

As we all know, Rahat Kazmi along with Oscar winner Marc Baschet had recently announced in Cannes 2019 that their film, Lihaaf would premiere as the closing film at the 16th Indian Film Festival Stuttgart in July, 2019.

Now, Rahat Kazmi has revealed that even before his film’s premiere at Stuttgart, he has received another invitation from IndoGerman films, Stephan Ottenbruch for premiering Lihaaf in Berlin.

Rahat Kazmi is glad to receive the invitation. He expressed, “It’s an honour to receive an invitation from him and we are excited about it. Besides, we have also been called to premiere in US, Mexico, Singapore and Europe. It’s a joyous moment for the team.”

Not only this, the famous French film producer, François d’Artemare (nominated for Polish Academy Award for Best Film) too reached out to Rahat Kazmi and poured words of appreciation. After watching the film at a personal screening arranged by the team, François d’Artemare appreciated the hardwork of the actors, giving special emphasis to the beautiful light and strong plot. He also approached the actress Sonal Sehgal on social media and appreciated her role in the film.

Rahat Kazmi is quite delightful on receiving golden words of appreciation from internationally acclaimed personalities. Sharing his happiness, he said, “We are nevertheless overwhelmed with the kind of response we are getting from all over the world. We were aware of the impact even before we started shooting the movie. No denying the fact, it’s one of the greatest works of Ismat Chughtai. So, once, during our research and visit to the author’s family, her grandson, Ashish Sawhny said that now the family’s respect is on your shoulders. We felt so responsible as we knew that many renowned filmmakers had tried to get the copyright too but we were the lucky ones to receive it.”

Apart from these all personalities, Rahat Kazmi has also received words of appreciation and encouragement from Siddiq Barmak, a Golden Globe-winner Afghan film director and producer. Rahat Kazmi got an opportunity to interact with Siddiq Barmak during a film festival in Singapore. Thereafter, Rahat Kazmi arranged a special screening for him in Singapore itself. After watching, Siddiq Barmak lauded the film saying, “It can be one of the best film of the year due to its plot and the immense effort of the team.”

Rahat Kazmi says, “We were happy to receive appreciation from a person who has won Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film (Osama, 2014). Not only did he appreciate but also enlightened us with his inputs in sound design and editing. We edited the film following his suggestions and you can see the outcome, the film is being loved by all and sundry.”

Sharing one of the incidents during the making of the film, Rahat Kazmi said, “I have evolved as a person while working on this film. Once, when I talked about the script with a renowned woman director, she appreciated my idea and encouraged me to work on the script but also advised me to get a woman director to assist as the story is about women’s sexuality. I understood her apprehensions but took it as a challenge. No doubt, it was difficult for a man to get into the shoes of women and portray it from a woman’s perception but after hearing all these songs of praise, I guess I succeeded in giving justice to the story.”

Rahat Kazmi thanked the protagonists of the film, Sonal Sehgal and Tannishtha Chatterjee for helping him understand the plot from a woman’s point of view. A period drama, the film is based on Ismat Chughtai’s most celebrated story Lihaaf (published 1942). The film is co-written and directed by Rahat Kazmi and produced by Rahat Kazmi Films, Tariq Khan Productions, and Zeba Sajid filmNamita Lal, who will also be seen in the film, playing the role of Rabbo, which is one of the most important characters of the film. Other producers include Tariq Khan and Zeba.

The film is set to hit the theatres by the end of this year.