`Filmistaan` about love for Bollywood in India and Pak: Nitin Kakkar

New Delhi: Nitin Kakkar initially set out to do a film on Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto`s stories but ended up making `Filmistaan` in which he explored Indo-Pak relations through the shared love that people from both sides of the border have for Bollywood. The film will hit theatres on June 6 post Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif`s visit to India to attend Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi`s swearing-in ceremony on May 26. The director, who started his journey from the small screen, says his film looks at the bitterness and love that people from both sides of the border inherited after Partition and whether there is hope to overcome this. "This film is an amalgamation of lot of observations. Actually, I was working on a movie that I wanted to base on Manto`s stories. That was to be my first film but that could not happen. "Then I created this character of Sunny Arora, a Bollywood fanatic and I realised that films would be a great tool to explore Indo-Pak relations in a contemporary manner. This idea became `Filmistaan`," Nitin said. Nitin, whose grandparents were originally from Lahore, says he preferred telling his story from the human perspective. "I am looking at the issue from a human perspective without trying to make a political statement. It is a tribute not just to my grandparents but to all the people who were uprooted during Partition. They left their homeland and could never return," Nitin says.