Known for delivering such box-office blockbusters as Sultan (2016), Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) and Bharat (2019), successful filmmaker Ali Abbas Zafar is turning producer with Ananya Panday and Ishaan Khatter-starrer Khaali Peeli.
While Khaali Peeli still awaits its theatrical release, Zafar is planning to announce a few more projects, including a film based on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, also known as the 1984 Sikh Massacre, triggered by the assassination of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. And if fresh reports are to be believed, well-known Punjabi singer-actor Diljit Dosanjh is in talks with the makers to play the male lead in the yet-to-be-titled project.
"Ali has always been attracted to Indian history; both Gunday (2014) and Bharat grew from the past. He has wanted to make a film around the ’84 riots for a while now and has finally found a subject that has him charged up. Besides producing the period-drama, he is also creatively involved with the script. Ali and the team believe he (Diljit Dosanjh) is best suited to play the character and will bring in some local flavour too. Diljit has agreed verbally, with a final narration scheduled in a few months. The idea is to roll as soon as normalcy returns,” a publication reports.
If Diljit indeed signs the project on the dotted line, it will be his second film based on the ’84 riots. He has previously starred in a Punjabi movie called Punjab 1984 which also had the same subject. It went on to win the Best Feature Film prize in Punjabi at the 62nd National Film Award.
Diljit Dosanjh made his Hindi film debut with the 2016 film Udta Punjab. He was last seen in Dharma Productions’ comic-caper Good Newwz (2019) alongside Kiara Advani, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Akshay Kumar.
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Alia Bhatt at the Red Sea Film Festival where she spoke about the scale of Alpha Getty Images 
