Gully Boy

Murad is 22 and lives in Dharavi, a slum in Mumbai. His poverty-stricken Muslim family are struggling to pay for his college education so that he can later secure an office job. His father, an unskilled chauffeur, has just brought a second wife into their home, which does not exactly decrease the tensions in this five-person household. Murad seeks comfort in marijuana, in self-penned angry hip-hop, and in his secret childhood sweetheart, Safeena, a doctor’s daughter who is proud to wear her white hijab. When Murad accidentally meets a well-known rapper who encourages him to expand his hobby, a whole new world opens up for him. Together with his friends, he begins producing his own songs in which he raps about his problems, as well as those of his generation and his country. He also talks about what it means to be poor and Muslim in India and about the fact that here, even your dreams are colonised. As he dives deeper and deeper into the world of music, Murad’s life changes – and so does his relationship to his family and to Safeena. Bollywood meets hip-hop in Zoya Akhtar’s colourful but socially critical story about music and love. (Berlinale)