Muzaffar Ali presents ‘Naya Kashmir’ through his film

Veteran filmmaker Muzaffar Ali unravels a new side of Kashmir in a new video film, with the help of his daughter Noor.

Ali’s “A New Dawn In The Valley” premiered on the first anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370, on August 5. The over 20-minute video shows the beauty of Kashmir through the eyes of Noor. The conversation between father and daughter forms an engaging narrative.

   

The video opens with Ali saying: “It seems like another era since I left my beloved Kashmir. Life has taken so many twists and turns, but none of them have led me back to the land of my birth.”

Things change when his daughter, a computer circuit designer, opts to go back to the Kashmir.

“Strange are the ways of the universe, I think it conspired to bring me here,” she says.

Further explaining what pulled her towards her roots, she shares: “I couldn’t sleep that night after seeing the haunting images of Muzaffar Ali’s film ‘Zooni’, shot in Kashmir in 1989. I wanted to see Kashmir, my own land and just check it out for myself.”

“Zooni” is a still-unreleased film, starring Vinod Khanna and Dimple Kapadia. It revolves around the 16th century Kashmiri poet Habba Khatoon.

Moving on from the images of the film, the video shows the beauty of pashmina and other crafts. Noor, in turn, feels at home, and encourages her dad to join her. “They are building new roads, planning to set up IIMs and IITs, all this could mean that you could come back to teach and maybe even work at big hospitals like AIIMS that are coming up,” she says.

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