Zaid Khan’s debut film, Banaras, locks its theatrical release date

Five years after he first evinced interest in a career in showbiz, Zaid Khan, the son of politico Zameer Ahmed Khan, is finally getting his big screen debut. Director Jayathirtha Jayanna, best known for his films like Olave Mandara, Beautiful Manasugalu and Bell Bottom, etc., took on the responsibility of launching Zaid, after an earlier attempt by filmmaker Indrajit Lankesh failed to take off.

Jayathirtha has been quite tight-lipped about the subject of the film, which will be released as a pan-India project in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. All that he has said so far is that Banaras is a love story that explores relationships against the backdrop of the ghats in Kashi. Nearly 90% of the film was shot on location in Varanasi, a place the filmmaker fell in love with during the making of Olave Mandara. Jayathirtha has been quoted as saying that he’d vowed to return sometime to make a film set there.

The film has been ready for a while, but the team was waiting for a good release window, and it seems they have found it now. On the occasion of Ganesha Chaturthi, the team announced that Banaras will be in theatres across the world on November 4, which makes it the first Kannada film to zero in on a date close to Karnataka Rajyotsava. The November 4 date comes close on the heels of the release of the late Puneeth Rajkumar’s dream project Gandhada Gudi, a docu-feature that is getting a theatrical outing on October 28 for his first death anniversary.

Produced by Tilakraj Ballal under the banner of NK Productions, Banaras also stars Sonal Monteiro, Sujay Shastry, Devaraj, Achyuth Kumar, Sapna Raj and Barkath Ali, among others. With Banaras, Zaid joins the long list of politician sons in Kannada cinema, which includes the likes of Nikhil Kumar (HD Kumaraswamy), Anup Revanna (HM Revanna), Kireeti (G Janardhan Reddy), Sachin (Cheluvarayaswamy), Manoj (Kumaraswamy), among others.