The Kerala Story: A gut-wrenching recreation of an inconvenient truth

• Release Date: – 05/05/2023
• Cast: – Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Siddhi Idnani, Sonia Balani
• Director: – Sudipto Sen  

The Kerala Story chronicles the journey of Shalini Unnikrishnan (Adah Sharma) as she transitions from being a charming and vivacious soul growing up in God’s Own country to her ending up as a sex slave in one of ISIS’s camps and losing herself completely in the abyss that she finds her life spiralling into. What was it that made a simple, ambitious and mild-mannered girl take such drastic steps? Was it love? Was it brainwashing? Was it her hatred for her own religion or was it something else? Director Sudipto Sen and creative director Vipul Amrutlal Shah attempt to find answers to these questions in their film that constantly feels like being based on actual events rather than being built on “WhatsApp forwards” and figments of its creator’s imagination as many mainstream media outlets want you to believe.

A relevant and important story that needed telling: –

The film has either met with complete silence from the mainstream Bollywood fraternity — even though it is produced by one of its bigger producers/directors — or is being lambasted for its director’s comment that 32000 girls have been poached out of Kerala and have ended up in ISIS camps. While this assumption feels far-fetched and unreal, it cannot be denied that coerced and forceful conversions have always been a thing in India. Even if a single girl has been forcefully converted and taken out of India to serve ISIS, it is a matter that needs the attention of law enforcement. When told with honesty, it can also make for a necessary and poignant cinematic retelling. In my opinion, that is exactly what The Kerala Story is.