MUMBAI: Film editor Aarif Sheikh, who won the National Award for Samay – When Time Strikes and who has been the man behind the edits of noted films like Makdee, Maqbool, Taxi No. 9211, Parzania and The Blue Umbrella, is ready with his first directorial venture Let‘s Dance that is set to release on 19 June.
“Although dancing is the DNA of the film, I always wanted my story to be solid. It needed to hold on its own. Although I was working with mostly new artistes, I never had any trouble extracting performances, as all my actors were perceptive,” says Aarif.
Introducing the US-born-and-bred dancing sensation Gayatri Patel, the film has the debutante playing a simple but determined dance teacher, who on her path to fame changes course to motivate a group of underprivileged kids.
Shifting base from US to Bollywood to pursue acting, Gayatri first spent time taking tips from theatre top-guns Satyadev Dubey and Makrand Deshpande, did an acting workshop with Veena Mehta and played the role of Ophelia in Neeraj Kabir‘s play Hamlet. She also did three music videos for Venus opposite Inder Kumar and Jugal Hansraj, till one day, Aarif decided to launch her as the lead in his directorial debut.
Produced by Dr Arvind Patel, the film co-stars Ajay Chaudhary, Aqib Afzaal, Sugandha Garg, Asif Basra, Abhaas Yadav, Nikuunj Padaya, Paras Arora and Anjan Srivastav.
“I‘ll never forget Let‘s Dance, it‘s imbedded in my soul. Every shot, every scene, every creative decision of mine,” adds an excited Aarif.
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