Sheen Snow India

Sheen

Snow

India | Urdu, Hindi, Kashmiri, English | Drama, Others

Budget USD 625,000 Financing in place USD 190,000 Production Company Anticlock films anticlockfilms.com

Present at Film Bazaar Shazia Khan

Looking for Co-Producers Financiers Sales/Sales Agents

Synopsis

The year is 1990. An armed Islamic militant uprising for freedom from India in Kashmir has started. Sabiha, a fiercely independent and free-spirited 11-year-old Muslim girl, is caught amid it, struggling to make sense of her world as it slowly transforms from heaven to hell.

Her Hindu best friend Payal is sent to a different city. They write letters to each other. Payal, in exile, pines for home, and Sabiha no longer recognizes her home as home anymore. She is asked to wear a veil and stop her cycling escapades. A cinephile, she can no longer watch films. Sabiha’s respite from this bedlam remains Payal’s house, where her feisty grandmother lives, resilient in her resolve of not leaving the only home that she has ever known.

This is a tale of belonging, loss, identity and a staunch belief in humanism as the characters of the film reach out to each other and resist victimhood. It re-creates the wonder and vulnerability of a child’s point of view, when the outside world is so dark.

The film Sheen is inspired from my growing up in Kashmir in the early 1990s, witnessing the collapse of this tourist haven to a conflict zone. The softest targets, as usual, became the minorities, women, and children. Over three hundred thousand Hindu Pundits became migrants in their own country. Women were forced to wear the burkha (veil), beauty parlors were burnt, cinema halls were shut down, restrictions were imposed by the army and militants on moving out freely. It was like being imprisoned in your own house. There was no value of human life and death became real.

When extremists subjugate and the weak suffer in silence. The people of Kashmir, like many communities in the world, still endure the repercussions of conflict, which is not over yet. The fear of the gun remains so deep that people, even today, would rather not speak up. This film is a voice for these people and for those whose stories have been left unsaid.

Director(s)’ Biography

Shazia Khan is an award-winning Indian filmmaker, with over 15 years in the field as director, cinematographer, and producer. Her internationally acclaimed films, Caravan, Salam India and Sama Muslim Mystic Music of India and have been showcased on Aljazeera, BBC, Dutch TV and in over fifty international film festivals. Born in the conflict-torn state of Kashmir, she is passionate about human rights, social justice and migration. She is working on her childhood memoirs in a documentary, I Never Left. She has degrees in mass communication (Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi) and film producing (UCLA.)

Shazia Khan Director

(+91) 9718184149 saffronfilmsindia@gmail.com

Producer(s)’ Biography

Onir is an Indian film and TV director, editor, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his film My Brother...Nikhil, starring Sanjay Suri and Purab Kohli. Nikhil was one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships. He won the National Award for his film I Am. Some of his other films include Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz, Shab, Chauranga, I Am, My Name is Abhimanyu, Sorry Bhai, Bas Ek Pal, My Brother Nikhil. Onir finished shooting, Pine Cone, a queer love story. He is also shooting a sequel to his 2011 film I Am, named We Are. He is also working on a SonyLiv web series on Pulwama Attack based on Rahul Pandita’s book.

Onir Dhar Producer