"All London did was blind you - made you spin into circles, thinking you were orbiting the sun. But, look. We don't share the same moon anymore."

It is Rani’s wedding day. Two years have passed since she left Sameer in London and now he returns to bid her a final farewell. He barges into her changing room, minutes before she has to proceed with the ceremony and the couple discuss how different they’ve become.

 

Fusing Spanish and Indian art, Leila/Laila explores the dilemma that many young Malaysians face: should we embrace our inborn cultural roots or reject them for Western, liberal ideology?

 

Rani and Sameer’s story is told through the passion and precision of Flamenco and Kathak dance and the musical sounds of the Spanish Guitar and the Indian Tabla.  Using these artistic lenses, we respectively compare the couple’s modern and traditional values.

Leila/Laila parallels two beautiful cultural aesthetics to highlight the universal need for a balance between cultural and liberal values in this ever-changing modern era.