Filmmakers Shanker Raman and Pawan Kumar have joined Deepa Mehta to direct Netflix’s upcoming Indian series Leila, the streaming giant announced on Thursday.
Based on Prayaag Akbar’s 2017 dystopian novel of the same name, Leila, set in the near future, follows a mother in search of her daughter from whom she was separated 16 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,” according to the official synopsis of the series.
Screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Urmi Juvekar (Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!) will serve as the showrunner, while Mehta is the creative executive producer. Huma Qureshi is playing the lead. The six-episode series will be premiered in 2019.
Raman made his directorial debut last year with Gurgaon, starring Pankaj Tripathi, and has worked as a cinematographer for over two decades. Kumar has directed the acclaimed Kannada films Lucia (2014) and U-Turn (2016). Mehta, an Indo-Canadian filmmaker, is known for her Elements trilogy Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water (2005).
Leila joins Netflix’s growing slate of Indian original series, of which Sacred Games and Ghoul were released this year. In the pipeline are adaptations of Bilal Siddiqi’s Bard of Blood, Aravind Adiga’s Selection Day (out on December 28) and Binky Mendez’s Crocodile.