Kashmir’s surreal beauty along with unfortunate insurgency have attracted film makers for a long time. Among a range of movies made over the years, JK Newsline has curated a list of five movies based on Kashmir which can’t be missed.
- Shikara (2020)
Vidhu Vinod Chopra is the producer and director of the 2020 Hindi-language film Shikara. The movie is based on a Kashmiri Pandit couple’s love story that took place during the height of the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s and the following flight of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley. Critics gave it varying ratings, while the audience criticised it for not telling the untold narrative of Kashmiri Pandits as was promised. However, the movie was appreciated widely for its cinematography. This love story makes for a wonderful watch on a rainy day.
2. Fanaa (2006)
The romantic thriller Fanaa was released in 2006 and was directed by Kunal Kohli and featured Amir Khan and Kajol. When it was first released, Fanaa was one of the most expensive Bollywood movies. The sufi term “fanaa” translates as “destroyed” in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Hindi. While Kajol portrays Zooni Ali Beg, a blind Kashmiri woman, Amir Khan plays Rehan Qadri, a tourist guide in New Delhi. Both falls in love, but a terrorist strike that purportedly results in Rehan’s death keeps them apart. Later it is discovered that he is an insurgent from Kashmir and was not actually slain.
3. The Kashmir Files (2022)
The Kashmir Files is a 2022 drama film in Hindi that was written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri. It’s a moving story that vividly depicts the anguish, suffering, and struggle of the Kashmiri Pandit community in 1990 as Krishna, a young college student, goes on a mission to learn the truth. The story switches back and forth between Krishna’s mission in the current times and his family’s struggles thirty years before. The Kashmir Files is one of the important movies based on Kashmir which can’t be missed.
4. Haider (2014)
Haider is an adaption of Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer and Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The movie is set in 1995 Kashmir. The plot centres on Haider, a student and poet who goes to Kashmir to learn the truth about his father’s abduction amid intense civil and criminal violence. In the Vishal Bharadwaj-directed movie, Kay Kay Menon, Shahid Kapoor, Tabu, and Irrfan Khan gave some of their best performances.
5. Notebook (2019)
Notebook is a romantic drama produced by Salman Khan Films. In Notebook, screenwriter Darab Farooqui pens down a story about a remote area in the Valley, where a small institution floating in a lake is about to be closed because it lacks a teacher. A small number of former pupils are now stranded in the school. To fill the void, an ex-soldier named Kabir Kaul (Iqbal), a Kashmiri Pandit suffering from remorse for failing to save a youngster from a landmine, shows up.
