Qissa is a 2013 Indian-German drama film in Punjabi written and directed by Anup Singh. The film was released in Indian theatres. Nationwide and simultaneously on DVD and VOD as well. The film was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival where it won the Netpac Award for World or International Asian Film. The theme of the film focuses on desire of a Sikh man towards having a son to continue the family lineage.
During the Partition of India in 1947, a Sikh Punjabi named Umber Singh evacuates his house with his wife Mehar and three daughters. He is disgruntled at the fact that he does not have a son to carry on his family lineage which is assumed to be carried forward by the males of the next generation. He tells his wife that he is confident the next child will be a boy, but Mehar is unsure and fearful that if she has another girl, Umber will leave her. During the birth of their fourth child, Umber takes the child from the womb and declares with happiness that it is a boy. Mehar checks the gender of the child and realizes the child is in fact a girl. Umber is declaring child to be a male because of his strong desire to have a son. She tells Umber that it is better to kill the girl child than enforcing his desire for a son on the child. Umber ignores her and happily, in his own denial, declares the new child a boy named Kanwar Singh.
