Critically-acclaimed “Paan Singh Tomar” won two National Awards: best actor honour for Irrfan for his role of the titular decorated steeplechase champion-turned-dacoit and best feature film honour for Tigmanshu.The filmmaker also shared that he and Irrfan collaborated on two more films titled “The Killing of a Porn Filmmaker” and “Ghulami”, but both got shelved.”Irrfan and I did two more films, for which we had started shooting but they got shelved. ‘The Killing of a Porn Filmmaker’ was a different kind of a film. We shot for it for one week, it was an interesting script, but the producers shelved the film.”In 2005, we worked on ‘Ghulami’, which was about the Revolt of 1857. It was a commercial film with Irrfan, Sunny Deol, Sameera Reddy and other international artists. For one-and-half years, I researched for the film, we made costumes, weapons, but the film got shelved,” he recalled.Tigmanshu said he became emotional when he watched “Paan Singh Tomar” after 10 years of its release as by then many of the cast and crew members, including Irrfan, writer Sanjay Chauhan, and actor Sitaram Panchal, had passed away.The filmmaker also alleged that production banner UTV Motion Pictures delayed the theatrical release of “Paan Singh Tomar”.As he waited for the film to see the light of day, Tigmanshu said he chose to make the 2011 thriller drama “Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster”, which turned out to be a hit.”They took one-and-half years to release it. This has been the tradition with UTV. They hesitate in releasing good films like ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’, ‘A Wednesday’, ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, etc.They claim they are visionary producers, but how?”We were waiting for the release of the film. We had no work then, so we would play table tennis and then thought of making the film ‘Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster’, and it worked well. So, once this worked, they released Paan Singh Tomar’,” he said.
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