POOJA WANTS MUKESH TO REVEAL SADAK 2 DETAILS

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SKJ Actress Pooja Bhatt says that she prefers to keep mum on the casting of Sadak 2, as she believes the producer is the right person to make the announcement. Talking about the sequel, she says, “Sadak 2 was initially Sanjay Dutt’s idea. He came to me and asked why we weren’t making Sadak 2. I told him that he would have to talk to Mukesh Bhatt, who owns the IPR and is the producer of the film. Later on, we got Bhattsaab ( Mahesh Bhatt) and spoke about the film. But then, if there is anyone who should be making any announcement about the cast of the film, it should be Mukesh Bhatt, because he is the producer of the film, and the production house, Vishesh Films, will have all the rights and the liberty to make any announcement they want,” says Pooja.

While there has been talk about the inclusion of Alia Bhatt in the film and there is still no clarity on who will direct the film, we will have to wait for Mukesh Bhatt to offer some revelations. For those unaware, Sadak, which was released in 1991, starred Sanjay Dutt and Pooja Bhatt and was directed by Mahesh Bhatt.

— Sanskriti Media Filmmaker Mudassar Aziz’s Happy Phir Bhaag Jayegi humanizes the traditional enemy, the Chinese at a time when temperatures at the border are running high.

The director is no stranger to building bridges through his cinema. In Happy Bhaag Jayegi, which released in 2016, Mudassar had built the comedy around Indo- Pak amity, for which he faced ferocious flak. But that doesn’t bother him. “To me, it is important that with Happy Bhaag Jayegi I found my cinematic voice as a director.”

Mudassar admits he had been floundering in his earlier films. “I was doing what was asked of me, not what I wanted to do. With Happy Bhag Jayegi I found my voice. And if that voice propounded peace with Pakistan, I’m happy. And now with the sequel I’ve made another clean comedy that doesn’t demonize our neighbour. We need more efforts at creating harmony in the universe.” That the sequel has gone to India’s other traditional enemy country is just coincidence. “We didn’t plan yet another peace treaty through our cinema. China is considered a threat to India did strike us. But for us, China was an unexplored location as not too many films had gone there.” The director sees his cinema as a weapon of peace. “We are constantly making films about terror and terrorism naming Pakistan as the traditional enemy. But there is a lot more to Pakistan and China than war and aggression. We share such a long and eventful history with both countries. I wish audiences would take away some of the smile from the Chinese excursion in Happy Phir Bhag Jayegi just as they done with Pakistan in the earlier film. We really have to stop talking of war. And begin exploring peace in cinema.”

— SKJ