PremiumBanaras on OTT: When and where to watch Zaid Khan and Sonal Monteiro’s time-loop love story
Zaid Khan’s launchpad, directed by Jayathirtha, was in theatres way back in November 2022, and has managed an OTT deal only now
Last Updated: 10.47 PM, Jan 20, 2024
Zaid Khan, the son of Karnataka politician Zameer Ahmed Khan, was meant to make his film debut years ago. Director Indrajit Lankesh had been roped in to launch him, but that didn’t take off and it wasn’t until a few years later that Jayathirtha came into the picture and gave Zaid a start in the Kannada film industry.
The film, Banaras, was made on a fairly large scale and released as a pan-India project, in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Malayalam in November 2022, but it did not have a great reception at the box office.
By April last year, Banaras got its television premiere on Zee Kannada, but there was no word on a streaming date. It was reported that the film would be on Zee5, but it didn’t land on the platform until today. As of January 20, 2024, Banaras is available to stream on Zee5.
Zaid was paired with Sonal Monteiro in the film, a love story with a time-loop concept. In the film, Zaid was Siddharth in the film, whose prank on fellow college mate Dhani (Sonal) goes horribly wrong, following which, she not only leaves college, but also relocates to Banaras for a fresh start. Determined to right his wrong, Siddharth heads to Banaras, only to get caught in a time loop. The film follows whether he is able to break out of the spell and make good on his deed is what Banaras is about.
Sonal had told OTTplay a couple of months ago that the film’s OTT deal was finally done and she believed it would drop sometime in December. Well, she got the streamer right but not the date. Meanwhile, since the release of Banaras, Sonal was seen in Garadi and Sugar Factory, while Zaid is yet come with is follow up film. It was announced that he would begin work on debut director Puneeth Rudranag’s film, but there’s been no word on that yet.