New Delhi: Vidya Balan’s new film Jalsa co-starring Shefali Shah will stream directly on Amazon Prime Video on 18 March. The film has been co-produced by T-Series and Abundantia Entertainment.
Balan who was seen in Ekta Kapoor's sitcom Hum Paanch in the mid-1990s, made her film debut with Bengali drama Bhalo Theko (2003) and entered Hindi cinema with Parineeta, based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's 1914 Bengali novel of the same name. She then starred opposite Sanjay Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani's comedy film Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) besides ensemble films Salaam-e-Ishq and Eklavya: The Royal Guard, both of which performed poorly at the box office.
Her performance in Bhool Bhulaiyaa, a comedy horror film from Priyadarshan, which served as a remake of the Malayalam film Manichitrathazhu (1993), in the role of a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder won her much acclaim. Her career took yet another turn in 2009 when R.Balki cast her in his comedy-drama Paa where she played a single mother struggling with her son's (played by Amitabh Bachchan) progeria. Abhishek Chaubey's black comedy Ishqiya (2010), where she starred as a manipulative widow in a village in Uttar Pradesh, No One Killed Jessica, a thriller based on the murder of Jessica Lal and co-starring Rani Mukerji, and The Dirty Picture (2011), a drama based on the controversial Indian actress Silk Smitha, proved to be critical and commercial successes.
Balan next starred in the thriller Kahaani (2012), directed by Sujoy Ghosh, set in Kolkata during the Durga Puja festivities, where she played a pregnant woman in search of her missing husband. In recent years, she is remembered for her role in Tumhari Sulu, as a radio jockey and Mission Mangal, that also featured Akshay Kumar.
