Aligarh

Aligarh (2016)

अलीगढ़

A sympathetic journalist covers the true story of Ramchandra Siras, an esteemed linguistic professor at Aligarh University who was suspended on charges of homosexuality.

Date of release
2016-02-26
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (57)
Runtime
1h 54m
Genres
Drama, History
Director
Hansal Mehta

Casting

Interesting facts

Aligarh is a 2015 Indian Hindi biographical drama film directed by Hansal Mehta and written by Apurva Asrani. It stars Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar Rao in the lead roles.

Production

Mehta said the planning for the film started in 2010, when a woman from Delhi sent him an email with an idea for a story based on the AMU incident, and his editor Asrani decided to choose it as his first film writing project. Though Rao and Bajpayee's characters interact face to face throughout the film, the real life Sebestian never met Siras, interacting with him only through phone conversations.

Govinda was Hansal Mehta's first choice for the role of Ramchandra Siras, before Manoj Bajpayee was cast. The film was shot in various locations, including Allahabad, Bareilly, Delhi and Mumbai. Mehta could not shoot Aligarh on location at AMU due to resistance from local far-right groups, and hence much of the film was shot at Bareilly College, which while smaller, has the same sense of architecture as AMU.

Bajpayee said in 2024 that making the film had a major impact on him, stating that it guided him to where he should take his career next, and that it improved him as a human being. He also said that he was not himself when doing the film, and that he felt Siras' spirit guiding him.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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