FIRAAQ (Hindi)

cast: Naseruddhin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Sanjay Suri, Tisca Chopra, Deepti Naval, Raghuvir Yadav

directed by Nandita Das

FIRAAQ is the directorial debut of actress Nandita Das and is based on the 2002 Godhra riots in Gujarat. The film has opened in the festival circuit to rave reviews and is competing in the Asia pacific screen awards in Australia later this year.

The feature film produced by Percept Picture Company is expected to hit the Indian circuit only by early 2009. FIRAAQ marks both the directorial as well as the writing debut of Nandita Das, who has been so far known for her performances in movies like FIRE, 1947 EARTH among several others. Also to captivate the audiences visually she employs the skill of noted cameraman Ravi K Chandran.

Onscreen, Nandita Das has proven herself the most soulful of actors, capable of combining emotional expressiveness with unshakable integrity. Off screen, she has maintained an ongoing commitment to social justice in India. Das brings these two worlds together in her feature debut, telling the story of one of India's great wounds with both sincerity and passion.

Conflict between Hindus and Muslims continues to flare into violence in India, and is often stoked by political interests. Firaaq begins in 2002 in the state of Gujarat, where three thousand Muslims died in communal riots. In an early scene of almost Shakespearean gravity, two Muslim men dig a mass grave for the victims. From there, the story jumps forward one month, away from the direct physical effects of the conflict to the more amorphous – but increasingly persistent – inner discord.

When Hanif and Muneera return to the modest home they had fled during the violence, they find it ransacked. With their lives shattered not simply by vandalism but by betrayal from their neighbours, Hanif seeks revenge. Elsewhere, middle-class Hindus Sanjay and Arati were untouched by the hostilities, but are met with new moral challenges. Serene older musician Khan Saheb (Naseeruddin Shah) has tried to transcend religious differences, but as a Muslim living in a Hindu neighbourhood, he now finds this stance more complicated. At the same time, Anu and Sameer, an intermarried Hindu-Muslim couple, finally face the tensions they have long suppressed.

Das interweaves these stories over one twenty-four-hour period, as characters of both faiths and from many levels of society grapple with the new, post-violence reality. Through it all, a young boy named Mohsin embarks on an urban odyssey from his refugee camp towards a better future, wherever he might find it.
Firaaq is an Urdu word that means both separation and quest. Like this courageous and essential debut film, the word acknowledges divisions while pointing a way forward to hope. -TIFF

So this is one movie that needs to be watched out for. However I also see it running into trouble on the grounds of Gujurat. Afterall, where Nandita Das is there, controversy has a way of getting there!