A Holy Conspiracy: Soumitra Chatterjee And Naseeruddin Shah Share Screen In Courtroom Drama Releasing on July 29

A Holy Conspiracy: Naseeruddin Shah and Soumitra Chatterjee are sharing the screen for the first time. The film is a courtroom drama, with both actors playing lawyers pitted against each other.

A Holy Conspiracy: Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah will be seen with late thespian Soumitra Chatterjee in a film releasing after a long wait. Directed by Saibal Mitra, A Holy Conspiracy hits the theatres on July 29. The trilingual film is based on the famous American play, ‘Inherit the Wind’, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.

The film also features Biplab Dasgupta, Anashua Majumdar, Kaushik Sen and Amrita Chattopadhyay in prominent roles. This is for the first time that the audience will see two great performers Naseerudin and Soumitra sharing the screen. It’s a courtroom drama, with both actors playing lawyers pitted against each other. 

The story has been woven around an Adivasi Christian-dominated area in Jharkhand, and deals with a debate on what is more important — religion or science. The film has its characters speaking three languages — Hindi, English and Bangla.  

“A Holy conspiracy was completed before the pandemic started. We had to wait for almost two and a half years to release it in theatres," director Saibal Mitra was quoted as saying in an interview.  

He told PTI: “The day when Naseerji and Soumitrada met on the floors, we saw how the two legends of Indian cinema revered and loved each other.”

Mitra said Shah “enthusiastically participated and contributed to developing the script”.

"I just sent him (Shah) an SMS with the proposal to act in my film. I was not sure whether he would reply but to my surprise, he immediately wrote back and asked me to come to Mumbai and meet him.” 

Mitra also said: "Both Naseerji and Soumitrada were supportive about the subject of the movie which talks about India's great secular tradition."

Talking about Soumitra Chatterjee, who died of Covid in 2020, Mitra told PTI the legendary actor had tried to give his best despite his old age.

Chatterjee had undergone an eye surgery just before the shoot began.

"He would often tell me about his health and regretted that had this opportunity come to him a few years earlier he would have been in a better shape health-wise,” Mitra said.

“We are really sad that Soumitrada is no longer with us and we hope that the viewers of Indian cinema will remember the movie for the memorable performances of Naseerji and Soumitra da.”

He said there was a great camaraderie between the two stalwarts on the sets, with Chatterjee praising Shah’s acting prowess and the latter patiently waiting to give dialogue cues to his icon.

"We came to know that it was the wish of both the icons to act together in a movie someday. I was fortunate that it happened in my film for the first and the last time,” Mitra told PTI.