After Saba Qamar brought the story of Qandeel Baloch to life in the drama serial Baaghi, an Indian filmmaker, Alankrita Shrivastava, is bringing her story to the silver screen.
This is the acclaimed Indian filmmaker behind works like Lipstick Under My Burkha. Now she is set to direct a film about the Pakistani social media star, who was murdered in an honor killing in 2016.
Producers Vikas Sharma, the man behind Toba Tek Singh, and Sunny Khanna the producer behind Why Cheat India, are producing the film. These filmmakers will base the film on the book ‘The Sensational Life and Death of Qandeel Baloch‘ by Sanam Maher. They have obtained rights for the biopic published by Aleph.
Aside from the scandalous and thought-provoking film Lipstick Under My Burkha, Alankrita Shrivastava’s works include Busan selection, Dolly Kitty and Those Twinkling Stars, and the Netflix series Bombay Begums.
It is only fitting that she tells the story of Qandeel Baloch, whose real name is Fouzia Azeem. The small village girl came to the city with big dreams and became a social media sensation. However, her antics had her dubbed as ‘Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian’.
It was a scandal with religious scholar Mufti Qavi that led to her being murdered in an honor killing by her brother. Meanwhile, Mufti Qavi fled to Canada and still lives there.
In fact, he had another similar ‘selfie incident’ with another social media star, Hareem Shah. Luckily the Pakistani TikToker wasn’t subjected to honor killing over the photograph. However, she did later post a series of videos ‘exposing’ the religious scholar.
