Actress Rasika Dugal, who will be seen in an upcoming movie titled “Hamid” directed by Aijaz Khan, says working on the film has moved her deeply.
Rasika will be seen playing a widow and a mother to a young boy. The film is set against the backdrop of Kashmir.
“I was nervous that I will not be able to do justice to this part and to the story of the people of Kashmir who have been through and continue to go through so much. I felt that I will always be an outsider to that grief and I guess, in one sense, I will always be. But I tried to do all that I could to get as close to being a part of their lives,” Rasika said in a statement.
Rasika spent some time in a small village in Kashmir called Badarkot and chanced upon an opportunity to live with a local family there with whom she spent a considerable time and that helped her nuance her role.
She said that it was producer Iffat Fatima`s documentary and Founder and Chairperson of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons in Jammu and Kashmir Parveena Ahanger`s work in the valley that connected her to the character Ishrat in the film.
“It was Iffat Fatima`s documentary in particular and Parveena Ahangars work in the valley that connected me to Ishrat (the character in the film) and her unresolved grief in an intangible way. Working on this film moved me deeply. I felt like something within me had shifted and I do hope that has translated on screen,” she added.
“Hamid” tells the tale of a woman whose husband disappears one night and her young son is left fatherless. Curious to know more about his father, the child`s curiosity is piqued when someone tells him that his father is with Allah and separately his mother tells him that 786 is Allah’s number.