Nawaz signs Kabootar

The upcoming film is an India-France-Norway co-production

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is all set to headline Kabootar, the debut feature film of writer-director Ishan Sharma. The film is an India-France-Norway co-production. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in Delhi in early 2027.

As per sources, the film is set against the crumbling architecture and layered world of Old Delhi, Kabootar follows Mehboob (played by Nawaz), a street detective who secretly reads letters written to a Djinn in search of prospective clients. His path crosses with Naoko, a Japanese tourist carrying the weight of a painful past, and Ruby, a young child searching for his parents. 

‘The invisible collaborator’

Ishan, who developed the script through the production and storytelling Workshop at the Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, said, “Nawaz has been an invisible collaborator to a generation of young writers and directors, myself included. We write with his performances in our minds. From Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa to The Lunchbox, I’ve always admired the intensity and love he brings to a character, and his rare ability to move between hope and despair, light and dark, without losing either.”

He added, “Kabootar asks something of him that audiences haven’t seen before.”