Deepa Mehta's 'Leila' Is A Take On Totalitarianism Looming Worldwide

Deepa Mehta is back with a new show about totalitarianism. She feels it speaks of what is happening not just in India but also worldwide

- Priyanka Bhadani

It has been some time since Deepa Mehta had a wide release in India. The last one was the Preity Zinta-starrer Heaven on Earth in 2008. Other than that, her films, including the elements trilogy (Earth, Fire and Water), Midnight’s Children, Anatomy of Violence and Beeba Boys, have either been controversial or box office duds.

The Indo-Canadian filmmaker, who delves deep into the socio-political fabric of the land in her films, has often been targeted by religious fundamentalists for her films like Fire, Water, and Midnight’s Children, an adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s namesake book. “He [Rushdie] has got the Muslims and I have got the Hindus,” she had famously said about the religion of the fundamentalists attacking them.

But she is back, this time as executive producer and co-director of Leila, a series based on Prayaag Akbar’s namesake novel. The first season, starring Huma Qureshi, Rahul Khanna, Siddharth, Seema Biswas and Sanjay Suri, releases on Netflix on June 14. Sitting in a five-star hotel room with Qureshi, Leila’s lead actor, she talks to THE WEEK about the strength a woman needs and the battle she must wage to claim her right to live. She, however, refuses to talk about the controversies surrounding her previous films.