Carnival Movies Lanka screens ‘Hichki’ to mark International Women’s Day

Friday, 30 March 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Text and Pix by Gitika Talukdar

Carnival Movies Lanka (CML) is in the business of movie import. For movie lovers of Sri Lanka CML brought ‘Hichki’ from the prestigious production house ‘Yash Raj films’ from Bollywood to Sri Lanka recently.

The ‘Hichki’ film premiere screened on 23 of March at Majestic Cineplex. Many renowned personalities from the Sri Lankan film industry were present as invitees.

The movie is about painful and embarrassing experiences of a girl child who is struggling with Tourette syndrome, a common neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterised by multiple motor tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic disorder.

Naina’s character is played by Rani Mukherjee and shows how she faced humiliation at school and at home and how her parents split because of her condition.

Naina goes on to become a teacher and is put in charge of a group of students who have come to the prestigious school through a Government initiative, ‘Right to Education’. These underprivileged students make up class “9F” and are rebellious.

Naina wants to change this and starts teaching them with practical examples and more importantly she treats then with kindness, which helps her develop a close relationship with the students.

Written by Ankur Chaudhary and Siddharth P Malhotra, ‘Hichki’ marks Rani’s big return to cinema after 2014’s ‘Mardani’.

Renowned Sri Lankan movie maker Prasanna Vithanage who was present to watch the movie said that actress Rani Mukherjee held the film together even when it failed to retain viewers’ interest and her masterful performance made a lot of unlikely and overly emotional situations believable. “Indeed she is a great performer no doubt,” he added.

According to Movie Director Dr. Sunil Ariyaratne who were also present, ‘Hichki’ tackles many subjects gracefully, such as education, elitism and parental pressure. “It addresses the flaws in an education system that fails to be inclusive and it is rare for teachers to actually find it within themselves to try and break the molten metal and strive for something better for their students. Such concepts are needed at the time and the movie beautifully left a good message of change and acceptances,” he said.

Carnival Movies Lanka Director Sandya Salgado said that she was glad CML had tied up with Yash Raj banner and that they were able to screen ‘Hichki’ in the month of March to mark International Women’s Day, since it features a bold women actress like Rani Mukherjee who is herself an idol for many young leading actresses and upcoming stars.