''Aadhaar'' is a 2019 Indian

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

-language

dramedy Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film directed by Suman Ghosh. The film is written by

Amitosh Nagpal Amitosh Nagpal (born 22 October 1984) is an Indian actor, screenwriter and lyricist, known for his role in '' Besharam''. Early life Amitosh Nagpal was born in a Punjabi Multani Hindu family in Hisar, Haryana in 1984. Amitosh has to his credit ...

and Suman Ghosh. Amitosh has also written dialogues and lyrics for the film. Produced by

Manish Mundra Manish Mundra (born 22 April 1973) is an Indian film producer who has produced numerous Bollywood films like ''Ankhon Dekhi'', ''Masaan'', ''Kadvi Hawa'' and many more to his credit. Early years and personal life Manish Mundra was born in D ...

under his banner

Drishyam Films Drishyam Films is an independent Indian film production company. It was founded by Manish Mundra in 2014, and saw its first success with the release of the award-winning film '' Ankhon Dekhi'' in 2014. Other acclaimed releases include '' Umrika ...

, the film stars

Vineet Kumar Singh Vineet Kumar Singh (born 28 August 1978) is an Indian actor and writer known for his strong portrayal of an aspiring boxer Shravan Kumar Singh in Mukkabaaz (2018). A M.D. in Ayurveda from Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur, Vineet ...

, who is the first one in his village to get his

Aadhaar Aadhaar ( hi, आधार, ādhār, lit=base, foundation, bn, আধার) is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by the citizens of India and resident foreign nationals who have spent over 182 days in twelve ...

card made.

Raghubir Yadav Raghubir Yadav is an Indian actor, music composer, singer and set designer who works in Hindi films. He made his film debut with ''Massey Sahib'' (1985), in which he played the title role. He has won two International Awards as Best Actor for ...

Saurabh Shukla Saurabh Shukla (born 5 March 1963) is an Indian actor, screenwriter, and film director who works in Hindi and a few Tamil and Telugu films. He is famous for his roles in '' Satya'' (1998), '' Nayak: The Real Hero'' (2001), ''Yuva'' (2004), ''L ...

and Sanjay Mishra appear in supporting roles. The film had its premiere at the

24th Busan International Film Festival The 24th Busan International Film Festival was held from October 3 to October 12, 2019 at the Busan Cinema Center in Busan, South Korea. A total of 299 films from 85 countries were screened at the festival, including 118 world premieres and 27 in ...

under the section 'A Window on Asian Cinema'. It was supposed to be released in India this 5 February 2021, but it was postponed.

Synopsis

The film revolves around Pharsua, resident of village of Jamua, and his aadhaar (resident identification) card ID, issued by the Indian government. Villagers are suspicious that the government will collect their information and monitor them, so they show no interest in the new ID card despite the benefits that accrue to ID cardholders. Pharsua volunteers and he becomes the first person in the village to receive the new aadhaar card and is a star. But one day, the village priest predicts that the serial number on his ID card will soon cause the death of his wife, and Pharsua starts on a journey to save his wife. Now getting his ID number changed is of utmost importance to him, but it becomes an inviolable and unchangeable absolute number since it has been entered into the system. Pharsua wails about the unfairness of his ID number, but no one outside of his village listens to his pleas.

Cast

as Pharsua * Sanjay Mishra as Shastri *

as Parmanand Singh *

as Ghisu * Alka Amin as Rani's Mother *

Ekavali Khanna Ekavali Khanna is an actress who stars in Bollywood, Hollywood and Bengali films. Early life Born in Kolkata, Khanna attended Modern High School and is a graduate of Delhi University. She is of mixed Punjabi and Goan heritage. Khanna divid ...

as Mrs.Dahiya *Vishwanath Chatterjee as Minister *Prithvi Hatte as Rani *

Prem Prakash Modi Prem Prakash Modi (born 17 July 1968) is an Indian film director, writer and actor. Modi made his debut as a director in 2013 with a Bengali feature film ''Arjun – Kalimpong E Sitaharan'' starring Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Om, Manoj Mitra, Chu ...

as Rani's Father *

Ishtiyak Khan Ishtiyak Khan (born Istayak Arif Khan; 15 April 1976) is an Indian actor known for his work in bollywood movies and television shows. He came into limelight for his role as english teacher in the film Phas Gaye Re Obama which also went viral as ...

as Rastogi *Bachan Pachera as Santram

Production

Ghosh, a director who has made films in Bengali cinema, said that he had several stories that will have "no takers in Bangla cinema." In 2011, he read an article about the Aadhaar Card on ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', which triggered the idea of the film and he wrote a synopsis. Ghosh sent the synopsis of ''Aadhaar'' to the co-production market of the Busan International Film Festival which was eventually selected in 2016. The film was shot in Jharkhand in December 2018 to January. The shooting wrapped in February 2019.

References

External links

* {{imdbtitle, tt10500478 2010s Hindi-language films 2019 films Indian comedy-drama films 2019 comedy-drama films Films shot in Jharkhand Films set in Jharkhand Films directed by Suman Ghosh