Sherdil The Pilibhit Saga trailer: Pankaj Tripathi and Sayani Gupta fight tigers, corrupt government officials. Watch

The first trailer of Srijit Mukherji’s new film, Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga, released online Friday morning. The film features Pankaj Tripathi, Neeraj Kabi and Sayani Gupta in lead roles. The trailer tells the story of a simple man, who battles both wild animals and administrative corruption at the same time. (Also read: Pankaj Tripathi says he barely saw ‘any money’ as a child: ‘Didn’t even have TV’)

The trailer portrays the story of Gangaram (played by Pankaj). Gangaram adopts the infamous tiger practice and wants to give up his life so that the families of his village will benefit from the government scheme promised to help the family of tiger attack victims. However, when he enters the forest, waiting for his death, he meets Jim (essayed by Neeraj Kabi, who is a poacher).

Said to be inspired by true events, the film focusses on the adverse effects of urbanization, man-animal conflict, and how poverty can lead to bizarre practices, pushing humans to the brink of des.

Talking about his new film, Srijit said in a press statement, “Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga has been a dream project for years. After I read about the real life incidents in 2017, I immediately wrote the story and registered it and was wanting to make it for the longest time. So finally after 5 years the dream comes true and we bring you the story of Gangaram on the big screen”

Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga is presented by Gulshan Kumar, T-Series Film and Reliance Entertainment, produced by Bhushan Kumar and Reliance Entertainment and production by Match Cut Productions Private Limited. It is all set to hit theatres on June 24.

Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga is Srijit’s second Hindi film after the 2017 period drama Begum Jaan that featured Vidya Balan as a brothel owner. In his earlier interactions with the media, the filmmaker had said that a real incident of “tragic practices” in villages bordering the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve inspired him to write the story of Sherdil The Pilibhit Saga.

“It takes great courage to sacrifice one’s life to save the family and my film revolves around this heroism with a focus on man & nature conflict. “This subject is really close to my heart and I hope it will ignite the same emotions with the audiences regarding various social issues in our society,” he had said.