Sooni Taraporevala, director of Little Zizou (2008) and screenwriter of films like Salaam Bombay (1988) and The Namesake (2006), is coming out with a new Netflix film about two Bombay boys pursuing ballet. Yeh Ballet is based on Taraporevala’s own 2017 documentary of the same name, where she followed a 21-year-old and a 15-year-old’s dream of becoming the principal dancers of an American ballet company. The film has been adapted into a fictitious setting with characters emerging out of everyday Mumbai suburbs.
Starring Jim Sarbh and Vijay Maurya along with a bunch of new faces, the film promises to be an examination of class, especially in a city as conscious about it as Mumbai. Two young boys, Asif and Nishu, who come from the lower income group, are introduced to ballet, a dance form appropriated by the ultra-wealthy.
Yeh Ballet‘s trailer comes only a few weeks after Remo D’Souza’s Street Dancer 3D‘s release. While the latter has been turned into a cash-grabbing franchise with little regard for the art-form, Taraporevala’s film seems to care a little more about the young boys and their hunger to break away from their harsh realities. In that way, Yeh Ballet might even seem like a companion piece to Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy… except without an A-list cast.
Watch the trailer here:
Yeh Ballet releases on February 21 on Netflix.
