{"id":28749,"date":"2026-08-05T16:38:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T11:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=28749"},"modified":"2026-08-05T16:38:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T11:38:22","slug":"prateek-kuhad-to-make-film-acting-debut-in-dar-gais-drowning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=28749","title":{"rendered":"Prateek Kuhad to Make Film Acting Debut in Dar Gai&#8217;s &#8216;Drowning&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/prateek-kuhad\/\" id=\"auto-tag_prateek-kuhad\" data-tag=\"prateek-kuhad\">Prateek Kuhad<\/a>, the Indian singer-songwriter known for hits including \u201cCold\/Mess\u201d and \u201cKasoor,\u201d will make his feature film acting debut in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/drowning\/\" id=\"auto-tag_drowning\" data-tag=\"drowning\">Drowning<\/a>\u201d (\u201cDoobna\u201d in Hindi\/Urdu), <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/marginal-mediaworks\/\" id=\"auto-tag_marginal-mediaworks\" data-tag=\"marginal-mediaworks\">Marginal MediaWorks<\/a> has revealed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tDirected by <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/dar-gai\/\" id=\"auto-tag_dar-gai\" data-tag=\"dar-gai\">Dar Gai<\/a> and shot on location in New Delhi, the film marks Marginal\u2019s first fiction feature produced in South Asia, in partnership with Los Angeles-based label D36 and Mumbai-based Jugaad Motion Pictures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tKuhad plays Tarush, an indie musician in Delhi who lands one breakout hit and then can\u2019t escape the grip of a criminal record label boss. Marginal founder and CEO Sanjay M. Sharma is producing with the company\u2019s head of film, Milan Chakraborty, D36 co-founder and CEO Abhi Kanakadandila, and Jugaad co-founders Dheer Momaya and Gai, from a story the group developed jointly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cThe film is like if the Safdie brothers mixed John Carney\u2019s \u2018Once\u2019 and Lars von Trier\u2019s \u2018Dancer in the Dark\u2019 in the blender that is the contemporary music scene in Delhi,\u201d Sharma said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tFor Kuhad, the project grew out of an earlier collaboration with Gai, who directed the video for his song \u201cCold\/Mess.\u201d \u201cEver since Dar directed the video for \u2018Cold\/Mess\u2019 I hoped we would find more ways to work together,\u201d Kuhad said. \u201cSo when Abhi and Sanjay brought the idea for a film inspired by my song \u2018Drown,\u2019 I was immediately intrigued.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tKuhad\u2019s \u201cCold\/Mess\u201d reached No. 1 on Spotify India and was featured on former U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s year-end playlist; the Gai-directed video was later named Rolling Stone\u2019s Music Video of the Year. His third album, \u201cFull Moon Chamber,\u201d arrived July 10 via Atlantic Records, following a run of sold-out headline tours across North America, Europe, the U.K., Asia and the Middle East. He is repped by CAA and Big Bad Wolf India, with Everyday Rebellion handling worldwide management.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tGai\u2019s credits include \u201cThree and a Half,\u201d which streams on Netflix worldwide after a stellar festival run; her second film, \u201cNamdev Bhau: In Search of Silence,\u201d played at Busan, BFI London and Palm Springs. Jugaad\u2019s \u201cLast Film Show\u201d was shortlisted for the international feature Oscar. \u201cWith Doobna, I wanted to make a film that feels like life right now: real, funny, tragic, chaotic, and impossible to escape, impossible to press a reset button,\u201d said Gai, a Ukrainian native long based in Mumbai.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tKanakadandila, whose D36 roster spans South Asian-descent artists in the U.S., U.K., India and Pakistan, framed the film as a response to a gap he sees in how the region\u2019s music culture reaches screen. \u201cIndia has a singular relationship between music and cinema, but there\u2019s a fundamental mismatch between the spirit of the contemporary scene and the format of traditional Bollywood,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe film is the anchor of a South Asia-focused push within Marginal\u2019s broader international slate, which also includes projects in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Europe and Canada. \u201cThis is a trillion dollar market, two billion people, more English speakers than the United States itself, and the fastest growing, digitally connected, and largest youth population in the world,\u201d Sharma said. \u201cJust as we\u2019ve seen Korean culture, food, fashion, music and cinema resonate around the world, a similar wave is coming from South Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tMarginal has produced more than a dozen features in just over five years, including Tribeca 2025 Audience Award runner-up \u201cThe Rose: Come Back to Me,\u201d Tribeca Jury Prize winner \u201cCypher,\u201d and the recently released horror title \u201cCamp.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prateek Kuhad, the Indian singer-songwriter known for hits including \u201cCold\/Mess\u201d and \u201cKasoor,\u201d will make his feature film acting debut in \u201cDrowning\u201d (\u201cDoobna\u201d in Hindi\/Urdu), Marginal MediaWorks has revealed. Directed by Dar Gai and shot on location in New Delhi, the film marks Marginal\u2019s first fiction feature produced in South Asia, in partnership with Los Angeles-based&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Prateek-Kuhad-Dar-Gai.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}