The 51st Toronto International Film Festival just added a major Hindi-language action drama to its fall slate. Prime Video announced Tuesday that its original film Phoolan will receive a Special Presentation screening at the upcoming festival.
Directed and written by Emmy winner Richie Mehta, the movie stars Sneha Kumari as the titular outlaw. The plot centers entirely on a brutal 48-hour siege. A 17-year-old Phoolan finds herself trapped and fighting for survival against a private militia of 2,000 men sent to kill her.
The festival premiere is officially locked for September 16. Audiences will get their first look at 6 PM ET inside the Princess of Wales Theatre, according to the confirmed schedule.
The supporting cast is deep. Anurag Thakur, Vikram Pratap Singh, and Aakash Dahiya join Prateek Pachori and Dev Dutt Budholiya on screen. Namah Pictures producers Shareen Mantri Kedia, Kishor Arora, and Kanwal Kohli backed the project alongside Mehta. Prime Video holds the global streaming rights. A wide platform release date remains unannounced.
Thirty Years After Bandit Queen
This premiere marks a major international cinematic return to Phoolan Devi’s story. The new script pulls direct inspiration from the 1997 book I, Phoolan – The Autobiography of India’s Bandit Queen. Devi operated as a highly feared outlaw in the Chambal region. She later transitioned into a mainstream political career as a Member of Parliament.
Global audiences last saw this historical figure dominate the film conversation three decades ago. Shekhar Kapur’s highly controversial 1994 film Bandit Queen defined her pop-culture legacy and won three National Film Awards. Now, Mehta is bringing a fresh directorial lens to her early survival story for a massive streaming audience.