On Sunday, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s directorial venture Dear Jassi shone bright at the closing ceremony of the 48th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), winning the Platform Award. This time around, Dhandwar has trained his lens on the issue of honour killing in India through the Pavia Sidhu and Yugam Sood-starrer. The director, along with writer Amit Rai, drew inspiration from the 2000 honour-killing episode of Indo-Canadian beautician Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, who was murdered by assailants following the orders of Sidhu’s mother.

Telling such a story is never easy. Rai, whose last offering OMG 2 worked its charm at the box office, says authenticity was crucial when writing Dear Jassi. “A story of this nature has to be authentic to the T—from the writing, to the costumes. For me, it was refreshing. OMG 2 and Dear Jassi belong to two different milieus altogether. This film is international in its making, while its story is universal,” he says.

Dear Jassi revolves around Indo-Canadian Jassi, who encounters rickshaw driver Mithu while visiting her extended family in Punjab. As the two begin exchanging affectionate letters, they fall in love, not realizing the tough road that lies ahead. Rai, however, takes objection against terming it as a movie about honour killing.

“It’s a story of cultural estrangement. When people from India move abroad, they want to create a microcosm of what they remember of their culture. But when the kids grow up in an American/Canadian world, home feels like a culture shock. We’ve played it in a Romeo-Juliet way, but amped up the dark element. It’s a powerful story at its core.”