Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020) on Netflix
TV-1420201h 52mActionBiographyDrama
Gunjan Saxena, raised in Lucknow, dreams of flying. Her father Anup supports her; her army brother Anshuman says the cockpit is no place for a woman. She applies to the Air Force.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb5.6/1036,420 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
As a child on a flight with her older brother Anshuman, Gunjan Saxena visits the cockpit and comes away wanting to be a pilot. Years later she asks to leave high school for flying, and her father Anup, who believes in equality, lets her try; Anshuman, serving in the army, insists a cockpit is no work for a woman. Attempts at other flying courses end over qualifications and cost. A newspaper advertisement opens the Indian Air Force route, and she is the only woman accepted in her batch. Medical tests find her one centimeter short of the height requirement and seven kilograms overweight, and with her father she works out a regime before the retest. Training brings harsh realities in a male-dominated force.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl faced a campaign against producer Karan Johar and Dharma Productions over nepotism for casting Janhvi Kapoor, daughter of actress Sridevi and producer Boney Kapoor. A teaser poster giving the Netflix release date omitted Johar and Dharma Productions, which commentators linked to the allegations.
- Authorities in the Indian Air Force wrote a letter to the Central Board of Film Certification over the film's alleged "undue negative portrayal" of IAF personnel, noting that the IAF was the first branch of the Indian Armed Forces to recruit female officers and that it has a gender-neutral workforce.
- Gunjan Saxena's coursemate Sreevidya Rajan posted on Facebook that she, not Saxena, was the first woman pilot to fly in Kargil, having been deployed to Srinagar when the conflict started. Retired Wing Commander Namrita Chandi supported her, saying credit was being taken away.
- Gunjan Saxena said she and Sreevidya Rajan were not stationed together at Srinagar during the Kargil operations and did not fly together. At an IAF-arranged media interaction towards the end of the Kargil conflict, her name was projected as the first woman to fly for the IAF in a combat zone, and she was credited in headlines, articles and the Limca Book of Records.
