On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, acclaimed filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's much-talked-about film 'Saturday Afternoon' (Shonibar Bikel)'s official trailer was released on Jaaz Multimedia's YouTube channel.

This marks the first time Bangladeshi audiences got to watch any glimpse of the film, as the film is suffering from not receiving government censorship for the last four years, even after getting clearance from the Bangladesh Film Censor Board on January 21 this year.

The 1:42-minute trailer showcases an ensemble cast of actors including Zahid Hasan, Mamunur Rashid, Iresh Zaker, Nusrat Imrose Tisha, Intekhab Dinar and Indian actor Parambrata Chattopadhyay and other actors, in the setting of a cafe.

"#SaturdayAfternoon, a film directed by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki is a one-shot film to be released on the 10th of March in the USA and Canada. The film unravels the clashes and contradictions of religion, ideology, and civilizations through a terror drama that takes place at Dhaka café which acts as a miniature of the conflicted world we live in," according to the YouTube description of the trailer.

The spine-chilling trailer delivers stellar performances by the actors accompanied by an appropriate colour scheme and sound, foreshadowing the narrative of the hostage story, and also a new visual experience to Bangladeshi audiences as it has been a one-shot film, a never-seen-before approach in the country's film industry.

After being released in the USA and Canada, the film might get an international OTT release although that is yet to be finalised, according to the sources.

Inspired by the 2016 Holey Artisan massacre in Gulshan, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's 8th directorial film 'Saturday Afternoon' (Shonibar Bikel), a Bangladeshi-German-Russian co-production, has been stuck and denied the censor certificate from Bangladesh Film Censor Board for the past four years.

Although Farooki and the film fraternity in the country continued fighting for the film's approval and censor certificate, Bollywood, in the meantime, moved forward with the movie 'Faraaz'. The Hansal Mehta directorial was based on the same incident and got its theatrical release in India on February 3, narrating a more direct and weak reflection of the actual event, according to many audiences and film observers.