Step aside, everyone. The buzz is that debutante director Zoya Akhtar is making a dhamal entry into Bollywood today with Luck By Chance — the film that’s been produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani and whose story and script has been penned by Zoya herself.

Happily, Bollywood’s the backdrop of this film and Zoya’s got film stars, filmmakers, fashion and costume designers shining in each frame, making it the first production of its kind.

The story is that she’s got over 20 prominent and interesting faces from Bollywood involved in the narrative of Luck By Chance. Ritesh explains, “In terms of how many celebs we have, the starcast is quite big; but the film is an insider’s journey into Bollywood and shows what mayhem goes into making a Hindi film. So we had to take real people from the industry. And all play themselves in the film.” A huge and challenging task. Ritesh adds, “Thank God Zoya didn’t write the script bringing all of them in one frame. It would have been crazy. They all form an integral part of the narrative and each appears at different intervals.”

So in just three hours, the audience will get to feast on Bollywood superstars Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Ranbir Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna, Kareena Kapoor , Rani Mukerji, Dia Mirza, Vivek Oberoi, Boman Irani and others. And, to her credit, all these busy stars took time off their schedules to shoot for Zoya... but none of them charged for their appearances.

“Everyone went out of their way to adjust a day or two. All of them are friends who Farhan and Ritesh have worked with before,”says Zoya.

“They know that we will not exploit them. There is a certain level of trust between us and that’s why the film was possible,” she said.

Luck By Chance is presented by Big Pictures and Excel Entertainment and has Farhan and the very watchable Konkona Sen Sharma in the lead. The cherry on the cake is Hrithik Roshan, who plays a superstar in the film.