(Releasing in New Zealand on Friday, November 20)
Director: Rensil D’Silva
Story: Karan Johar
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi
Music: Salim – Suleimaan
Director of Photography: Hemant Chaturvedi
Styling: Aki Narula
Location: Philadelphia and New Delhi
It all began with Avantika hailing a cab. Or maybe not.
Avantika is a professor in psychology, back in India from New York, come back to care for her father.
She teaches at a Delhi University. Ehsaan too is a professor who comes in as a substitute, to teach in the same University. From their first meeting, there are sparks flying. Ehsaan may have rubbed her the wrong way trying to steal a cab from under her nose, but his charm is irresistible.
Avantika can’t hold out against it for long. Despite his reservations about Ehsaan being a Muslim, her father agrees to bless their wedding. Avantika and Ehsaan are married and leave to start their new life in New York.
As soon as they land, Avantika manages to get a job for Ehsaan in her university. They set out to look for a home for themselves, but Ehsaan doesn’t seem to like any of the houses they see. Finally through an advertisement of an Indian neighbourhood, Avantika manages to find a house Ehsaan likes.
Their neighbours are conservative Muslims and their lifestyles are a revelation to Avantika. At a dinner, she is taken away from Ehsaan into another quarter where all the women dine separately.
They all seem to blindly accept and obey the code of conduct set by Nasreen, who along with her husband Bhaijaan are almost the de facto head of the neighborhood. All of them look up to her. All accept another young woman, Salma.
Salma visits Avantika surreptitiously the next day and asks her not to trust anyone. She tells her that her own life is in danger and she needs help.
What follows are a series of bizarre events that turn Avantika’s life upside down and drive her into a morass of emotions that spin madly out of control taking her to a point of no return.
- Kurbaan, releasing simultaneously in Australia and New Zealand, is distributed by Mind Blowing Films.