[3][1] Sultana (Sadiya Siddiqui), a small town prostitute, and her pimp Khudabaksh migrate to the metropolis, bringing with them their dreams and meagre belongings.
The downtown and back streets where Sultana's story unfolds is peopled by 'characters' of varying hues, styles and make-up.
From these chance meetings, seductive glances, elliptical encounters, graceful gestures and witticisms Kali Salwaar the film unfolds.
Kali Salwaar, based on the writings of Saadat Hasan Manto, marks Filmmaker Fareeda's directorial debut.
Consciously doing away with Manto's romanticized image of being drunk and depressed and creating legendary stories of the partition, Fareeda set about creating Manto's world through his characters using a contemporary setting to let audiences relate to issues like displacement and marginalization which are very valid even today.
It was important for the actors to figure out the degree of stylization for herself/himself to be able to tread between naturalism and control so as to provide each 'character' with a mist enabling a double take on what was obviously 'seen'.
They said, "Fareeda captures the poetics of life, in which ornate Urdu and street slang alternate, friendship dispels loneliness, hope turns into despair, yet poverty is realistically harsh.