Zameer Ahmed Khan's son, Zaid Khan’s debut film Banaras to release this September?

Karnataka politician Zameer Ahmed Khan’s son Zaid Khan has been eyeing a filmi debut for a while. Way back in 2017, filmmaker Indrajit Lankesh had announced that he would launch Zaid, but it wasn’t until a good two years later that the plan firmed up, albeit with a different director at the helm. The responsibility to launch Zaid had fallen on Jayathirtha, best known for his films like Olave Mandara, Beautiful Manasugalu and Bell Bottom, among others.

The film, Banaras, was launched as a pan-India project with versions in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, with Sonal Monteiro as Zaid’s romantic interest. In earlier interactions with the media, Jayathirtha had said that Banaras is a love story that explores relationships against the backdrop of the ghats in Kashi.

Recently, the first song from the film, a romantic number called Maayagange, which featured the lead pair in Kashi, was released in Kannada and Malayalam. Following this, there’s been a strong buzz that Jayathirtha is gearing up for the release of the film. It is being reported that the team is gunning for an early September release, most likely in the first week itself, which will then coincide with Kiccha Sudeep’s birthday.

With Banaras, Zaid joins the long list of politician sons in Kannada cinema, which includes the likes of Nikhil Kumar (HD Kumaraswamy), Anup Revanna (HM Revanna), Kireeti (G Janardhan Reddy), Sachin (Cheluvarayaswamy), Manoj (Kumaraswamy), among others.

It was earlier reported that following Banaras, Jayathirtha would begin work on Bell Bottom 2. But that will depend entirely on Rishab Shetty’s availability, given that he is still busy with his own film Kantara, which will be in theatres on September 30. Jayathirtha has also been quoted as saying that he was working on a subject that will serve as launchpad for Sudeep’s nephew Sanchith.