Kohinoor
Date:
January 9, 2023
Kohinoor
Kohinoor
by Udita Bhargava
Schiwago Film GmbH | Germany
AMOUR FOU Luxembourg sàrl | Luxembourg
VK ART AND DESIGN PVT. LTD | India
2nd feature
Looking for Gap Financing, Post-production services, Festival Release, Sales Agent
Logline
When Kohinoor, a transwoman, is rejected by her lover, she sets off on a journey to look for her sister who had gone missing when Kohinoor was a child. A story about love, loss and community in which Kohinoor overcomes the ghosts of her painful past.
Synopsis
KOHINOOR (25) a transwoman, lives in a remote coastal village in eastern India where she is an outcast, shunned by society and family alike. Thus, her relationship with MRINAL (32), an heir to a powerful political family, can only exist behind veils; a deadly secret known only to themselves. When Mrinal marries a ‘high born’ woman, Kohinoor accepts it as her fate and is satisfied with the stealthy rendezvous that continue after his wedding. But as his loyalty to his family deepens, she realizes that her love means little to Mrinal. One fateful night, in a violent confrontation with her increasingly abusive lover, she kills him.
She flees to Mumbai. SANDEEP (25), a friend from her village, helps her settle in. She joins a new clan of Kinnars and delves into a search for her lost sister MALTI (11), who was trafficked to the city by HARI (48), a man who once promised to marry her MOTHER (45). The search provides Kohinoor with new purpose, causing her almost to forget her painful past. It’s at this point that Mrinal returns. As a ghost. Kohinoor breaks down. In order to live, she must exorcise his ghost and all that is buried in her past. It is the reappearance of the evil Hari in her life that makes a reckoning possible: to seek answers, to accept, to reconcile.
Kohinoor sings; her songs connect her to those like herself, invisible and dispossessed, who pass through our cities each day. She finds her place in the community of all that is forever living and changing.
Director’s Profile
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Udita Bhargava lives and works between India and Germany. KOHINOOR is her second feature. Her debut feature DUST, a German-Indian co-production premiered at the 69. Berlinale 2019. Her shorts have been screened and awarded at film festivals across the world. She has worked on several international film productions including Danny Boyle’s SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, Lars von Trier’s ANTICHRIST and Mira Nair’s THE MIGRATION. Udita has studied flm directing at the Film University Potsdam Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. She holds a Master’s Degree in mass communication and a Bachelor’s Degree in English literature. She is an alumni of Berlinale Talents and of the Into the Wild Mentoring Programme. She has worked with several cinema institutions like the Deutsche Kinemathek and the Berlinale. Currently, she is developing a coming-of-age drama feature ‘O’ and a sci-f mystery series ‘GOA’. The former project has received the BKM grant for script development, the latter was part of the Medienboard Artist-in-Residence-Program. She is also working with UFA Fiction in Berlin to develop their German Indian feature ‘TARA – DER KLEINSTE STERN AM HIMMEL’. |
Company Profile
Schiwago Film GmbH was founded in Berlin in 2000 by Martin Lehwald and Michal Pokorny. In 2007 Marcos Kantis joined the company as a shareholder, and since 2020 he and Martin Lehwald have headed the company as managing partners. The focus of the production activities is on the development and production of feature films and fictional TV formats, in particular the promotion of young directors and up-and-coming talents.
Founded in Luxembourg in 1995, in Vienna in 2001and Germany in 2023, AMOUR FOU realises artistically exceptional feature, documentary and short films.
Throughout the process AMOUR FOU stands for vision and pushing the envelope, whether in regard to aesthetics, production or distribution strategies. The focus is on European independent auteur cinema and the distinctive “handwriting” of the directors who work with AMOUR FOU. The associate partners of AMOUR FOU Vienna and AMOUR FOU Luxembourg are Bady Minck and Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu and André Fetzer of AMOUR FOU Germany.