Women are often shown as a symbol of sacrifice, patience,
and endurance in the entertainment Industry and that’s what ZEE5 and Zindagi
are trying to break with their first of its kind desi noir anthology, ‘Qatil
Haseenaon Ke Naam’ The series is directed by critically acclaimed British
Indian director Meenu Gaur and stars some of the popular female faces of the
Pakistani entertainment industry, including Samia Mumtaz, Sanam Saeed, Sarwat
Geelani, Meher Bano, and Faiza Gilani.
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Meenu , who is best known for her 2013 Pakistani film ‘Zinda
Bhaag’ that was an entry to the foreign film category at the Oscars, says that
with her new show she is trying to make a thriller from the female perspective.
“As women creators and filmmakers, we are getting a chance
to tell all kinds of stories and that is very exciting. We have been talking
for many years about why we don’t have female-led stories. It’s not just about
women in the lead but that you should be telling all kinds of stories about
women. I want to tell thriller stories about women.
“Just because it’s a thriller, it doesn’t have to have male
heroes. Similarly, desi noir is totally a male-dominated genre… all of that
is shifting,” she told Opoyi.’
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The British-Indian filmmaker said that for years now, “these
Qaatil Haseenas or femme fatale are seen as vamps.”
“Because the male universe tells you that they are vamps.
Nobody ever says, ‘okay, let’s hear that story.’ Once you do that, you get a
totally different story obviously, so that was the idea to turn that around and
tell this side of the story, and are they really bad? For a woman to know what
she wants and to go and get it in itself becomes a threat to society so that’s
the problem and that’s what we are trying to shift here,” she said.
Written by Farzad Nabi and Meenu Gour, ‘Qatil Haseenaon Ke
Naam’ is set in the timeless alleys of ‘Andron City’, a mythical neighbourhood,
and showcases tales of love, lust, power, redemption, and revenge woven into a
web of betrayal and anger.
Each story in the
anthology depicts the fearlessness of women and their determination to avenge
their deceit. There is mystery and intrigue at the core of the stories with
twist endings.
“Every haseena in the show has her own personality. They
belong to different age-groups too because this is also a stereotype that if
you call it haseena then that means she has to be young. We wanted to change
that too. For us, beauty is not just physical, beauty is about women taking
their space and claiming it and that can be women of any age, so that was the
thinking,” she said.
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Lastly, Minu feels that it’s a great time for South Asian
makers globally.
“See, noir is a very
western genre, it’s a Hollywood genre and here we are saying its desi noir and
desi means South Asians and I think that is very exciting where we can be in
this zone now. We are in a zone where we are doing something western but we are
going to say no we are going to bring our own language and interpretation in
it. All these shifts are happening as South Asian creators and makers. We are
being able to explore a new zone of creativity and that is exciting,” she sums
up.
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‘Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam’ will stream from December 10 on
Zee5 Global.
