Netflix announced today that their next Indian Original Series Leila will launch globally on June 14, 2019. Based on the book by Prayaag Akbar, Leila stars actors Huma Qureshi, Siddharth, Rahul Khanna, Sanjay Suri, Arif Zakaria amongst others. Deepa Mehta is the Creative Executive Producer for the show.
Deepa Mehta, the creative executive producer of the show, had the following to say about the show:
“At the heart of this series is the journey of a woman, in search of her daughter Leila, but also in search of an identity. Leila is about awareness, about paying attention, about looking at the world around us and asking pertinent questions about our future. That’s what makes it so perfect on a platform like Netflix with its global reach and ability to address a range of audiences with relevant, resonant stories.“
The six-episode series is a dystopian work of fiction set in the near future and follows the journey of Shalini, a mother in search of her daughter Leila whom she lost one tragic summer. Shalini deals with various hardships in the course of her search, in a story of longing, faith, and loss. The series is directed by Deepa Mehta, Shanker Raman, and Pawan Kumar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMNTFfvhoc&feature=youtu.be
Huma Qureshi had the following to say about her role:
“Leila has been a fantastic Netflix project to work on. I’m thrilled to be essaying Shalini, whose unique mix of strength, grace, and optimism is what gets her through all kinds of obstacles. So it really has been an honor to portray a character that has not only pushed me as an artist but I believe will resonate with a lot of young women. It is unlike anything I have done before and I can’t wait for Netflix to take this story to the world!”
Alongside Huma, Siddharth had the following to say about his character:
“My character Bhanu is a complex one and playing him has been an intense yet fruitful journey. Although the story Leila is set in a dystopian age, it is about human emotions. The team on set was wonderful which made this journey even more memorable. I am very excited to see how a global audience on Netflix reacts to this story.”
The synopsis of the show is as follows:
In a digitized city, sometime in the near future, as an obsession with purity escalates, walls come up dividing and confining communities. Behind the walls high civic order prevails. In the forgotten spaces between, where garbage gathers and disease festers, Shalini must search for Leila, the daughter she lost one tragic summer two years ago.. Skirting surveillance systems and thuggish repeaters, Shalini—once wealthy, with perhaps a wayward past; now a misfit, pushed to the margins—is propelled only by her search.
Leila launches worldwide exclusively on Netflix on June 14, 2019.
