In 2042 Delhi, six months after his manuscript titled Tees (30) is rejected for publication by the Literature and Arts Commission, Anhad Draboo, a young freelance prostitute, meets Niharika, a “reader” from the Commission who has been searching for him ever since she read his manuscript. In 2019, Mumbai, Zia Draboo, a corporate lawyer living with her partner Meera, finds out she cannot buy the flat she has been renting because of the Housing Society’s resistance to her name. In 1989-90, Srinagar, Ayesha, a housebound State Radio newsreader, reaches out to her childhood friend Usha to solicit help from her husband—a government official—for her own husband, Ghulam Muhammad, who faces bankruptcy and ruin amongst rising unrest in the city.
This is the plot of Dibakar Banerjee’s Tees, a film that exists but cannot be seen. Netflix commissioned the film in 2019 under the original title Freedom, shot it in 2020, received delivery in May 2022, and then shelved it. The streamer has given no reason except that it does not know if this is “the right time” to release the film. Since then, Banerjee has been touring film festivals, seeking buyers and arranging community screenings. On October 12, one such screening took place in Delhi, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.
The irony is stark. In the film, Anhad’s book—also titled Tees—is banned from publication due to rising state censorship. The film has met the same fate as its protagonist.
The film’s narrative spans three distinct time periods, tracing the gradual erosion of cultural memory and artistic freedom. It begins in 1989 in Kashmir, where Ayesha’s world is filled with the sounds of Radio Kashmir. Three decades later, in Mumbai of 2019, Zia and her partner struggle to get a house owing to her “name”. The culmination leads to the capital, Delhi, in 2042—a dystopian version where cultural and personal memories are replaced by the suffocating repetition of political propaganda that feels mechanical.
A family is followed through three generations, not for narrative’s sake but to track how the political climate evolves and dissent is erased. Banerjee suggests that authoritarianism’s most insidious victory lies not in dramatic acts of violence but in the quiet drowning of individual voices, personal histories and cultural nuances beneath the overwhelming noise of state-sanctioned narratives. The film’s existence, circulating only via community screenings, preserves the very memory it portrays as being under siege. Every frame watched, every discussion held, becomes a small victory for memory against the machinery of historical revisionism.
Banerjee’s film operates as a critique of the relationship between art and power. In the 2042 segment, the government, having successfully suppressed independent art, attempts to court Anhad Draboo to write “good”, state-approved books to instil “intelligence and enlightenment” in the masses. In today’s time, when most films toe the line of the state, Banerjee’s statement urges artists to recognise their moral position. This fictional scenario resonates uncomfortably with contemporary reality, where mainstream cinema increasingly aligns with government narratives whilst independent voices face systematic marginalisation. The 2042 segment proves prescient in its portrayal of how authoritarian regimes co-opt artistic expression, revealing a sophisticated understanding of how power structures utilise art for ideological purposes.
From Khosla to Tees
Dibakar Banerjee’s transformation from mainstream filmmaker to accidental dissident marks a broader shift in India’s creative landscape. His earlier works, including Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006) and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008), established him as a sharp observer of middle-class aspirations and anxieties in neoliberal urban India. These films, whilst critically astute, operated within acceptable parameters of social commentary. Banerjee’s artistic trajectory has gradually moved towards more direct political engagement. His segment in Netflix’s Ghost Stories employed extended metaphors to critique state power, whilst Tees is his most ambitious attempt to grapple with complex issues of identity, displacement and authoritarianism through the lens of a Kashmiri Muslim family’s multi-generational experience.
The film’s status—circulating only through community screenings and film festivals—has inadvertently transformed Banerjee into a symbol of artistic resistance. His refusal to compromise with distributors or streaming platforms, choosing instead to tour film festivals in search of alternative distribution channels, literally enacts the kind of resistance his film advocates. This real-world performance of artistic integrity mirrors the fictional Anhad Draboo’s refusal to write state-approved literature. By refusing to compromise, which would perhaps mean cutting out or altering parts of the film to make it acceptable to the State, and choosing the path of community screenings, Banerjee has enacted a refusal to be co-opted, cementing his place outside the state’s acceptable circle of storytellers.
Director and screenwriter Dibakar Banerjee speaking at the “The Hindu MIND Series” event in New Delhi on October 14, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
The journey from delivering films that offered self-critical observations of the rising middle class in neoliberal urban India to being recognised as a threat to the status quo reveals the shifting boundaries of acceptable artistic discourse. Yet one must question whether he is really as significant a threat as many, including both his critics and fans, suggest. Whilst Tees has been celebrated for its ambitious scope and political courage, it has also faced legitimate criticism regarding its representation of Kashmir. During the Delhi screening’s question-and-answer session, Kashmiri audience members raised concerns about the film’s linguistic choices, particularly the predominance of Hindustani over the Kashmiri language. This criticism points to a persistent challenge in Indian cinema: the tension between artistic ambition and authentic cultural representation.
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At times, it feels as though the central theme of one Kashmiri Muslim family was forced, and perhaps the research carried out for the film was not conveyed effectively. The screening left audiences wanting to know more—revelations that came only during the question-and-answer session, where the filmmaker seemed over-prepared on questions of censorship and perhaps under-prepared on questions regarding Kashmir. Banerjee’s apparent over-preparedness on questions of censorship contrasted sharply with his less convincing responses regarding Kashmir, suggesting that whilst the filmmaker has deeply considered the political implications of his work, the cultural specificity of Kashmiri experience may have received less thorough treatment.
The involvement of co-writer Gaurav Solanki adds another layer to Tees’s controversial status. Solanki’s previous work on Tandav, the Amazon Prime Video series that forced the platform’s executives to issue public apologies following political backlash, may have contributed to Netflix’s decision to shelve Tees. This connection suggests that streaming platforms are increasingly risk-averse, making pre-emptive decisions based on creators’ past controversies rather than evaluating individual projects on their merits. There is a possibility that the film was shelved by Netflix not just because of Banerjee alone, but as a pre-emptive measure given Solanki’s previous work receiving negative attention, leading to legal and political troubles. This guilt-by-association approach to content moderation creates a chilling effect that extends beyond individual films or creators. It establishes a system where past controversies can effectively blacklist artists from major distribution platforms, forcing them into alternative circuits that reach significantly smaller audiences.
The dystopia is already here
Tees attempts to weave together multiple threads of contemporary Indian social reality: the experiences of Kashmir’s Muslim population, urban housing discrimination, gender dynamics, queerness and the commodification of sex work through digital platforms. The film inches further away from Banerjee’s initial days of self-critical middle-class sensibilities and moves towards criticising the state through what has been characterised as an intersectional social justice cocktail.
The ambitious scope of the story demonstrates Banerjee’s commitment to addressing multiple forms of marginalisation but also presents significant narrative challenges. The film’s journey from 1989 Srinagar through 2019 Mumbai to dystopian 2042 Delhi—complete with surveilled slums and hyper-segregated communities—risks overwhelming viewers with its breadth of concerns. Ironically, Netflix’s decision to shelve Tees may have generated more interest in the film than a conventional release might have achieved. Even with the work of the crew and cast speaking for itself, perhaps what worked best in terms of marketing was the fact that the film was shelved, leading to interest from those slightly interested in notions of critical art to those who themselves produce critical work. The controversy has attracted attention from critics, artists and audiences interested in both critical cinema and the politics of artistic suppression.
Film festival screenings have become events that draw not only cinephiles but also those curious about work that has been deemed too dangerous for mainstream distribution. When the film was shelved, Banerjee ventured out to have it screened at film festivals to draw a niche audience and to possibly find potential production houses that would purchase the distribution rights from Netflix and launch it. The screening that happened in Delhi was one such example, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker himself.
This phenomenon reveals the complex dynamics of censorship in the digital age. Whilst suppression certainly limits a film’s reach, it can also create a kind of underground currency that enhances the work’s cultural capital amongst certain audiences. The film’s restricted circulation transforms each screening into a small act of resistance, imbuing the viewing experience with political significance that extends beyond the work itself. The audience received the film well, though with some criticism, and the central theme of discussion seemed to shift often to censorship, reimagining the film to be about stifling the truth or deciding narratives, when it may not have been the intention of the filmmaker in the first place.
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Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of Tees is how closely its dystopian 2042 mirrors contemporary Indian reality. Though Banerjee attempts to craft a dystopia in future, much of it can be attributed to the present as well. The surveillance of marginalised communities, the systematic suppression of dissenting voices and the co-optation of artistic expression for political ends are not distant future possibilities but present-day concerns. Banerjee’s futuristic vision functions less as speculation than as an extrapolation of existing trends.
This temporal compression—where the dystopian future feels uncomfortably present—enhances the film’s political urgency whilst raising questions about the role of cinema in documenting and critiquing social transformation. If the dystopia is already here, what responsibility do filmmakers bear to bear witness, and what risks do they assume in doing so? The situation that the current state of cinema is in, where one must either align with the narrative that the state expects you to peddle or struggle as an independent filmmaker, where you still suffer since distributors dictate where your films go, has been engaged with by Banerjee in his earlier engagement with neoliberalism.
The Tees controversy illuminates broader questions about the future of independent cinema in India. As streaming platforms become increasingly risk-averse and mainstream distributors prioritise commercially safe content, space for challenging, politically engaged filmmaking continues to shrink. The alternative circuits that currently sustain films like Tees—festival screenings, community events and word-of-mouth distribution—offer limited reach and financial viability. The situation demands not only support for individual filmmakers like Banerjee but also systematic advocacy for spaces where difficult conversations can occur through cinema. The film’s existence as a work that circulates primarily through community engagement shows both the resilience of artistic expression and its vulnerability in an increasingly controlled media landscape.
Tees is more than a shelved film; it marks a crucial moment in Indian cinema’s ongoing negotiation between artistic freedom and political constraint. Its fate will likely influence how future filmmakers approach politically sensitive subjects and how platforms and distributors calculate the risks of supporting challenging content. In preserving the cultural memory that it depicts as being under siege, Tees becomes both an artwork and an artefact of resistance in contemporary India’s evolving media landscape. The film’s existence, though limited to community screenings, serves as a testament to the power of cinema to preserve memory against the machinery of historical revisionism.
Ankush Pal is a sociologist trained at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He researches and writes on inequalities, public space, South Asian culture, and urbanisation.
