Short film ‘Kaur’, a story about a Sikh woman embracing her identity to release on BritBox UK

‘Kaur’ a short film written, produced by and starring award-winning filmmaker Parvinder Shergill, is set to release exclusively on BritBox UK.

The film revolves around a British Asian woman who embraces her identity as a Sikh and decides to wear a turban, despite her father not agreeing with the decision.

It is the story about the disagreement between a daughter and her father, who has not yet completely come to terms with the trauma he faced as a turban-wearing Sikh Punjabi immigrant in Britain.

The film is made under Pinder Productions and has been co-produced and co-written by Juggy Singh Sohal from Flip the Script Network, in association with Raise Creatives. It will release on 18 July and viewers can watch the film on BritBox UK, Birmingham Live reports.

Alongside being a filmmaker, Shergill is also a doctor working at St Mary’s Hospital in London. She grew up in Coventry, Birmingham and Leicester, and does not wear a turban herself. However, she revealed that the Sikh community preferred that she should, as it would enable her to go on a journey of self-discovery, and make the film more authentic.

She said, “You couldn’t possibly ask someone in real like to take theirs (turban) off, that would be disrespectful, so we really wanted to honour the story.”

According to Birmingham Live, the motive behind the story of the film is to address the lack of representation of Sikh women who wear Dastaar (turban) in mainstream cinema, television, theatre or music.

Co-producer and writer of the film, Juggy Singh Sohal told ITV that as a Sikh man, he wanted to showcase his culture, faith and the community.

He said, “…there’s no stories like that out there.

“The last one was Bend it Like Beckham, and that was predominantly about football, but it was a Sikh family at the forefront.

“‘Kaur’ tells the story of Avani. She’s a young, British Sikh girl who decides to embrace her identity and her faith and wear the turban for the first time and it’s against her father’s wishes.

“So he’s suffered from his own traumas from when he emigrated to Britain from India.”

Shergill will be seen sharing the screen with Nina Wadia, who has also starred in the BBC soap opera ‘EastEnders’, and in the Bollywood film ‘Namastey London’ as Jasmeet (Jazz) Malhotra Singh’s mother.