‘Bheed’ teaser out: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar’s film is on the 2020 migrant crisis

Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar in a still from ‘Bheed’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Anubhav Sinha’s new film Bheed, starring Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar, has dropped its first teaser. The film is a social drama depicting the migrant crisis triggered by the Covid-19 lockdowns. 

The 72-second teaser opens with black-and-white images of human devastation. We see hundreds of people rendered homeless overnight, sleeping on railway tracks, waiting at bus stops. 

A voiceover informs that while the pictures might evoke the 1947 Partition of India, they are in fact from the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. 

As lockdowns are announced, thousands of migrant workers lose their livelihood and homes. Hundreds are stranded as state borders are sealed. 

“Once again our society was engulfed in darkness,” the voiceover says as the screen plunges to black-and-white. 

Bheed, according to the makers, was shot entirely in black-and-white, a rare choice for a mainstream Hindi film. In addition to the teaser, first-look images of Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar are also out. The actors are seen essaying a cop and a frontline doctor respectively.

Talking about Bheed, Anubhav Sinha said in a statement, “ Bheed is a story of the most perilous times which changed everything for humanity. The key objective of shooting the film in black and white was to showcase how the visuals of the social disparity during India’s Lockdown were strikingly similar to what people went through during the 1947 India partition.”

“This story is about people whose lives changed in a snap and the colors from their lives were lost when the border was drawn within the country,” Sinha added.

Bheed also features Pankaj Kapur, Ashutosh Rana, Dia Mirza, Virendra Saxena, Kritika Kamra and others. The film is set for a theatrical release on March 24, 2023.