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MUMBAI: Reliance Home Video is pleased to announce the Home Video release of Govind Nihalani‘s epic tele-film Tamas.
Tamas is a decidedly acclaimed television film directed by Govind Nihalani, based on the classic Hindi novel of the same name written by Bhisham Sahni. The film was first shown on Doordarshan in 1987 as a series and later as a 4-hour-long feature film.
Tamas is being released as a four DVD (Rs. 799/-) and VCD (Rs.499/-) set. The DVD contains a collectible booklet and an audio-visual interview with Govind Nihalani on Tamas.
Sweta Agnihotri COO of Reliance Home Video said that "This August India will celebrate completion of 64 years of Independence. Tamas is a good reflection of how communal prejudice can scar generations of lives. We hope that an endevour like Tamas will make viewers introspect as to how as a nation we could protect ourselves from repeating such history."
Commenting on the launch of Tamas, Hirachand Dand COO of Madhu Entertainment & Media Ltd.had this to say " We have digitally restored and re-mastered Tamas for the home viewing audience and are happy to have Reliance Home Video as our business associate in this venture."
Bhisham Sahni, a key figure in Hindi literature won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1975 for Tamas. Sahni himself was a refugee in to India from west Punjab and he wrote Tamas thirty years after the partition. Govind Nihalani found Bhisam‘s approach to be very contemplative and non-judgemental. His style was exceptionally simple. The whole affair of India ? Pakistan partition was recorded as a terrible and heart ? rendering event in human history. The mainstay of Tamas was that every community has extremist elements who try to create problems. They do so only to achieve political goals.
Govind Nihalani bought the novel from a bookshop in New Delhi around the time he was the second unit director in Richard Attenborough‘s Gandhi. Once he read the book, he considered it to be the best novel ever written on those times and decided to make it into a film best novel ever written on those times.
Govind Nihalani‘s Tamas is a film about the mass migration of a Sikh and Hindu family to India, in the backdrop of riot-stricken Pakistan, at the time of partition in 1947. It shows a shocking and dreadful side of politics and the compassionate side of humanity that survives any carnage. Tamas drove the point home that ordinary people want to live in peace. The film won the Nargis Dutt Award for the Best Film on National Integration.
Tamas features Om Puri, Deepa Sahi, Amrish Puri, Bhisham Sahni, A.K. Hangal, Manohar Singh,Dina Pathak, Saeed Jaffrey and Surekha Sikri.
In 1988, Tamas won two national awards, Surekha Sikri won the National Film Award for Best supporting Actress and Vanraj Bhatia won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction Tamas DVDs and VCDs are now available at all leading stores across the country.
