Bring on the desi feminist noir in new Zee5 drama Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam

There's something interesting brewing on Zee5, the OTT platform that brought us Churails and Dhoop Ki Dewar, and it's called Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam.

Described by Deadline as a "desi noir anthology series", Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam stars Churails alums Sarwat Gilani and Mehar Bano as well as Eman Suleman, Sanam Saeed, Faiza Gillani, Beo Raana Zafar and Samiya Mumtaz.

A motion poster for the show was released on Wednesday and featured each of the seven women.

Osman Khalid Butt, Ahsan Khan, Sheheryar Munawar and Saleem Mairaj will also star in the series that revolves around the theme of female empowerment.

The show has been written by Farjad Nabi and Meenu Gaur and will be told from the perspective of seven femme fatales. Gaur is also directing the show.

The show focuses on the fearlessness of women and their determination to avenge deceit, whilst being set in ‘Androon Sheher’ (downtown) — a mythical neighbourhood. Themes of love, ambition, revenge and revolution will also be explored. Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam is a compilation of six stories of seven women who wrestle back control and redefine the word femme fatale.

Each story from the series will depict the “the fearlessness of women and their determination to avenge deceit,” according to Indian news outlet PTI.

Gaur, the writer and director, said that she was keen to explore a new interpretation of the noir genre told from the perspective of the much-maligned femme fatale characters. “It’s an attempt to correct the sexism of film noir and try our hands at feminist noir,” she said.

The show bids adieu to the woman as victims as the seven femme fatales get their way through methods that are “unexpected, sometimes horrifying but always liberating,” Nabil said.

Unfortunately for Pakistanis wanting to watch the show, they won't be able to access it via Zee5. Payments for Indian online content were banned by the State Bank in November 2020.