Leila trailer: Huma Qureshi struggles to find her daughter in Deepa Mehta's intriguing dystopian Netflix drama

The first trailer of Netflix’s much-anticipated Leila was released on Friday. With a dystopian concept at its fore, this six-part series is based on author Prayaag Akbar’s 2017 award-winning book of the same name. Helmed by Deepa Mehta, Leila stars Huma Qureshi, Siddharth, Rahul Khanna, Seema Biswas, Akash Khurana, Sanjay Suri and Arif Zakaria in pivotal roles. [caption id=“attachment_6648721” align=“alignnone” width=“837”] A still of Huma Qureshi from trailer of Leila. | YouTube Screenshot[/caption] Set in an imagined world, the trailer opens in the near-future of a digitised Indian city, where people are forced to bow down to the rules of religion and community. In the beginning, we learn that Shalini (Qureshi) has married outside her caste and is forced to join a cult like community to undergo a ‘purity’ exercise. While her husband is murdered and daughter is snatched away by the religion leaders, Shalini embarks on a quest to find her mixed-race child. Check out the trailer here

Welcome to the world of Unnati. Are you pure? #Leila, premieres 14th June. pic.twitter.com/Fuk0egvxrF

— Netflix India (@NetflixIndia) May 17, 2019

Leila is co-directed by Shanker Raman (Peepli Live and Mukkabaaz) and Pawan Kumar (writer and director of the 2013 Kannada romantic psychological thriller film, Lucia). Mehta also serves as the creative executive producer of the series. “At the heart of this series is the journey of a woman, in search of her daughter Leila, but also in search of identity. Leila is about awareness, about paying attention, about looking at the world around us and asking pertinent questions about our future," she reveals in a statement. Leila is slated to release on 14 June on Netflix.