Amazon MGM and Colour Yellow set Yami Gautam Dhar's 'Nayyi Navelli' for Oct. 16 theatrical release
Amazon MGM Studios and Colour Yellow have slotted Nayyi Navelli, an Indian fantasy family entertainer starring Yami Gautam Dhar, for a cinema release on Oct. 16 — timed to the Dussehra festival window, when Indian audiences turn out in force for big-screen fare (Variety).
The film is a blend of family comedy and fantasy adventure, built deliberately around festive theatrical viewing. It follows a new bride whose arrival turns a turbulent household in Meerut — a city in India's Uttar Pradesh state — into a picture of domestic harmony, at least until her brother-in-law becomes convinced she is secretly a daayan, the Hindi word for witch.
Balaji Mohan directs from a script by Himanshu Sharma and Divy Nidhi Sharma. Aanand L Rai and Himanshu Sharma produce through Colour Yellow, the banner Rai founded. The company's slate includes Raanjhanaa, Tanu Weds Manu, Tere Ishk Mein, Tumbbad and Tu Yaa Main. Music is by G.V. Prakash Kumar, a prolific South Indian film composer whose credits span Tamil and Telugu cinema.
This marks Colour Yellow's first collaboration with Amazon MGM Studios, a pairing that brings a major streaming-led distributor into a theatrical-first release plan. Nikhil Madhok, director and head of SVOD Originals at Prime Video India and Amazon MGM Studios — SVOD meaning subscription video on demand — called the film "THE Dussehra film," framing it as a natural fit for the holiday corridor.
Rai, no stranger to stories rooted in small-town India, described Nayyi Navelli as one that "surprises you at every turn" and said Gautam Dhar was an obvious choice for the lead. Gautam Dhar's most recent appearance was a cameo in Dhurandhar: The Revenge; she previously headlined Haq and Article 370, the latter a political thriller that became a box-office success in India in 2024.
The film will have a full theatrical run in cinemas before moving to streaming afterwards, as reported by the Times of India in March 2026. That sequencing — cinema first, OTT (over-the-top, the industry term for streaming platforms) second — follows the conventional window that Indian theatrical releases still favour for festival titles, even as streaming-only releases have proliferated across the market.
Dussehra, a major Hindu festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil, falls in October this year, and the date claim signals confidence that family audiences will treat a fantasy comedy about a suspected witch as holiday viewing. Whether that bet pays off will show up in the opening-weekend numbers come Oct. 16.
