Falak Bilal
Srinagar, Sep 8: In a landscape that has often been portrayed through the vocabulary of conflict, politics and headlines, Arifa seeks to tell a quieter story — one about a daughter returning home, a dying father and the memories that stand between them.
Directed by Rohin Raveendran Nair and written by Durgesh Singh, Arifa is one of three films in the anthology “Kashmir Muhabbat Se”, produced by Gubbara Entertainment. The film follows an estranged daughter who comes back to Kashmir to see her ailing father, only to find herself confronting a past that neither of them has been able to leave behind.
At its heart, the film is less about the Kashmir that dominates news cycles and more about the Kashmir experienced inside homes — through relationships, silences, old wounds and the possibility of forgiveness.
“Arifa is ultimately a story about coming home — and about what remains unsaid between people who once knew each other most intimately,” is the emotional idea at the centre of the film.
The father-daughter relationship gives the narrative its personal core. Her return is not simply a homecoming; it becomes an encounter with memories that have been buried for years. With his life nearing its end, both characters are forced to confront a question that is more personal than political: can the past be acknowledged before it is too late?
The anthology’s larger intent is to move away from familiar portrayals of Kashmir and bring ordinary human experiences to the foreground. Arifa does this through an intimate family drama, using the valley not merely as a backdrop but as a space carrying memories, belonging and emotional history.
For Director Rohin Raveendran Nair, the project adds another chapter to a body of work that has moved across genres and formats. A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, Nair has directed short films including The Booth and has also worked as a second-unit director and cinematographer on Sacred Games. He later directed an episode of Netflix’s Black Warrant.
That background in intimate storytelling makes Arifa an interesting departure from the conventional visual language often associated with Kashmir. Rather than presenting the valley as an abstract political space, the film places its characters and their unresolved emotions at the centre.
“Sometimes the most difficult journey is not the journey back to a place, but the journey back to a relationship,” the film’s premise suggests.
The title becomes particularly significant in that context. Arifa is positioned as a story where a physical return triggers an emotional reckoning — giving two people, separated by years of distance and hurt, one final opportunity to speak to each other.
As part of Kashmir Muhabbat Se, the film hopes to contribute to a broader cinematic portrait of the region — one where tenderness, family and everyday human experiences exist alongside the realities that have long shaped public perceptions of Kashmir. Rather than asking audiences to look at Kashmir from a distance, Arifa invites them to look through the window of one family home — and, in doing so, discover a story about love, loss, regret and the possibility of making peace with the past.
