Published on 05:38 PM, January 16, 2023

Chilling trailer for ‘Faraaz’ out

A snippet from the trailer.

The official trailer for Hansal Mehta's thriller film, "Faraaz", was released by T-Series, on its YouTube channel, earlier today. The film is said to be based on the tragic Holey Artisan incident which took place in Dhaka on July 1, 2016.

The two-minute-long trailer starts with a glimpse of customers at a café (presumably Holey Artisan) in Dhaka, enjoying their meals. As they sit there, several terrorists barge in, immediately shooting customers at random. Within the first 20 seconds, the scene has been set. It's terrifying to see the first bullet being shot comes as a shock. Many of those shot initially are foreigners, but as the scene cuts away to other locations in the cafe, we can see that the terrorists are shooting people at random.

As headlines begin to break and the rest of Dhaka slowly begins to learn about what is happening, the Bangladeshi police try and prepare a plan to save the hostages held by the attackers. While they are doing this, the scene again cuts to one of the attackers, as he smiles smiles at one of the hostages and remarks, "Faraaz Hussain, Bangladesh ka Shehzada (Bangladesh's prince)?" 

It is heavily implied that the title of the film is based on Faraaz Ayaaz Hossain, who showed exceptional bravery and stood up for his friends during those events, going on to be martyred amidst the brutality.

While the police desperately tries to come up with a plan for saving those in the cafe, another customer can be seen trying to save the children from the terrorists. The trailer ends with the same customer, played by Zahaan Kapoor, being pushed by a terrorist, who asks him what he wants. Zahaan replies, "Tum jaeso se apna Islam wapas chahiye (I want my Islam back from people like you)."

Even though "Faraaz" is set to release in theatres across India on February 3, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's "Saturday Afternoon" still awaits clearance from Bangladesh's censor board, with the reasoning that it will hamper Bangladesh's 'image'.

"Faraaz" had a grand world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in 2022.