I first started this project in 2017 as a short film with almost zero budget. After finishing it in a few months, I gained the confidence to try making a full-length film on a very tight budget.

In 2018, I began working on the feature film. It took a whole year to finish pre-production and shooting, as most of my team left, thinking it would be impossible to make a film with such a small budget. We originally decided not to include any songs because we couldn’t afford to create them. Luckily, I met a young music director who agreed to work with us for a low price.

Most of 2019 was spent on post-production and music. By the end of the year, we started filming the songs, but then Covid-19 hit, and shooting stopped in 2020. When the first lockdown ended, we resumed filming the songs. However, another lockdown began in early 2021, and many people, including my family and team, got sick. It took us a long time to recover. We all got better and vaccinated by the end of 2021, and filming resumed. Post-production work continued at the same time. By 2022, we had finished the film. However, we didn’t have enough money to release it in theaters. I started looking for investors, and after months of effort, we found one.

2022 was a very tough year for me, as I lost many loved ones unexpectedly. In 2023, we faced another shock with the sudden death of our music director, Jay Bora, who was only 31. After recovering from these losses, we decided to release the film in early 2023. But the distributors refused to show it in theaters because the film was longer than 2 hours and 30 minutes. Since I was working with new actors, I had to cut the film down from 2 hours 45 minutes to under 2 hours 30 minutes. This process took time, and we had to make changes in every department.

We finally decided to release the film in late 2023, with a planned date of December 15. However, when I submitted the film to the censor board in October, they delayed the certificate for over three months. This forced us to postpone the release. During this time, I also had to remove some scenes that the censor board didn’t approve. We got the certificate on December 27, 2023, and after discussing it with distributors, we set a new release date for February 2, 2024. We started promoting again and released the film on that date. The budget for marketing & release was as per the industry standards.

This entire journey has been full of challenges, hardships, and tragic events. However, my passion and dedication kept me going, or I would have given up.