After a long wait, Manoj Bajpayee’s labour of love Bhonsle is ready to release for the public in India. The film will release on streaming platform SonyLiv.
Set in a tumultuous period in Mumbai when scheming politicians were resorting to violence to rid the state of North-Indian migrants, the film features a terminally-ill lone wolf Maharashtrian cop Bhonsle, played by Manoj Bajpayee, who finds himself in an unlikely companionship with a 23-year-old North-Indian girl and her little brother. As the raging conflict destroying the world around them reaches Bhonsle’s doorstep, he preps up for one last battle worth fighting for but whether he will succeed is yet to be seen.
Directed by Devashish Makhija, who is known for writing and directing full-length feature films like Ajji and Oonga, Bhonsle’s first look was revealed at 2018 Cannes Film Festival and it premiered at 2018 Busan International Film Festival.
After screening at several festivals, including MAMI Film Festival and Dharamshala International Film Festival, and winning awards for Best Screenplay and Best Director at the Asian Film Festival Barcelona, Bhonsle will finally be accessible to the audience.
In an earlier interview with Indulge, Bajpayee had spoken about hoping to see the film releasing in India for the masses soon. While sharing how some roles give him sleepless nights, Bajpayee admitted that Bhonsle is not among them since he invested five years into the project, which allowed him to get into the skin of the character much before they went to the sets.
“If you see Bhonsle, you will think it is the most difficult role for me, but it didn’t seem difficult to me because I was trying to set up this project for five years and in that time, I went through the script several times... So, when the time came, I was all done with the mental and physical preparations. I was done long-long time back and if you watch Bhonsle, hopefully, the producers will release it soon, it will appear that I had sleepless nights but I didn’t because it was spanned over four years. In those four years, I and the director worked on it and went through it innumerable times so it was ready much before we went for the shoot,” Bajpayee had told Indulge.
Apart from Bajpayee, the film brings power-packed performances from Santosh Juvekar, Ipshita Chakraborty Singh, Virat Vaibhav, Abhishek Banerjee, Rajendra Sisadkar, Kailash Waghmare and Shrikant Yadav.
The film releases on June 26 on SonyLIV.