festplanner.app Open in the app
Still from The Ordinary Star

Feature Documentaries · Filmmaker Q&A · World Premiere

The Ordinary Star

Directed by Samreen Farooqui, Shabani Hassanwalia

Screening at DIFF 2026

Sat31 to Saturday 31 Oct · PictureTime 2
Plan it in the app

Opens the free DIFF 2026 app. It checks for clashes and adds walking time between screens.

Runtime
65 min
Year
2026
Country
India
Language
English, Hindi
Subtitles
English
Premiere
World

Synopsis

Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui is asked to study Ashok, the actual resident of the room the actor is going to inhabit while filming Star, Dibakar Banerjee’s short in Bombay Talkies (2013). The fiction director, the documentary filmmakers and the actor, bit by bit, construct the lead character of Star, Porandar Vithal. Ashok feeds this construction through his own life. The Ordinary Star is a documentary that ponders the nature and cost of the cinematic process: its invasiveness, its need to devour in order to create, and the endless search to live a life less ordinary.

Directors

Samreen Farooqui Samreen FarooquiSamreen Farooqui and Shabani Hassanwalia are filmmakers and producers with two decades of experience in research projects that have resulted in documentary and fiction films, archives, and publishing platforms. They have co-directed and produced five feature documentaries that have travelled extensively and played on…Shabani Hassanwalia Shabani HassanwaliaDirectorSamreen Farooqui and Shabani Hassanwalia are filmmakers and producers with two decades of experience in research projects that have resulted in documentary and fiction films, archives, and publishing platforms. They have co-directed and produced five feature documentaries that have travelled extensively and played on…

Cast and crew

Producer
Tiny Ray Pictures
Cinematographer
Jigmet Wangchuk
Editor
Amit Mahanti
Cast
Ashok Karangutkar, Dibakar Banerjee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui

On diff.co.inLetterboxdIMDb

Spotted a mistake on this page? Tell us.

More feature documentaries at DIFF 2026