- Culture, Dalai Lama, Drama films, Film, India, Short films, South and Central Asia, Tibet, World news
State of Statelessness review – Dalai Lama presides over intimate dramas about Tibetans’ life of exile
Tibetan directors, who all live outside Tibet, deliver a quartet of films that explore the pain of separation …
- Animation in film, Culture, Family films, Film, Pakistan, South and Central Asia, Studio Ghibli, World news
The Glassworker review – beautiful Ghibli-esque anti-war fable
Pakistani animator Usman Riaz’s dazzling debut owes much to Hayao Miyazaki, founder of Japan’s legendary studi…
- Culture, Drama films, Film, India, Life and style, Period and historical films, Romance films, Sex, South and Central Asia, World news
Girls Will Be Girls review – sexual awakening in Indian boarding school is poised and plausible
Preeti Panigrahi is excellent as Mira, a prefect dealing with first love and, unusually, sex, as she navigates…
-
Agent of Happiness review – Bhutan surveyors attempt to analyse joy
Two assessors ask questions but it’s the detail and nuance that is so compelling in this gently absorbing docu…
- Agriculture, Culture, Documentary films, Film, Forced labour, Global development, Human rights, Science, South and Central Asia, Uzbekistan, World news
Cotton100% review – how forced labour paid the price of Uzbekistan’s ‘white gold’
Two brave women stand up for human rights as hordes of Uzbeks are dragged from their workplaces to pick state …
- Biology, Coronavirus, Culture, Drama films, Film, India, Infectious diseases, Medical research, Microbiology, Science, Society, South and Central Asia, World news
Bheed review – lockdown thriller cuts across India’s class conflict
A tense, state-of-the-nation drama set in Covid-era India successfully exposes how the caste system underpins …
- Action and adventure films, Culture, Drama films, Film, Pakistan, South and Central Asia, World news
The Legend of Maula Jatt review – Pakistani classic remake is Game of Thrones meets Gladiator
Entertaining new version of Pakistan cult movie follows a young noble boy spirited away to a poor village when…
- Air pollution, Climate crisis, Culture, Documentary films, Environment, Film, India, Pollution, South and Central Asia, World news
Invisible Demons review – apocalypse now for pollution nightmare in Delhi
A despairing handwring of a film shows the effects of environmental crisis on India’s capital – with images as…
-
My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan review – desperately sad study of a boy’s life
Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi have followed Mir for two decades in what is almost a brutal companion piece t…
- Bollywood, Comedy, Comedy films, Culture, Film, India, Romance films, South and Central Asia, World news
Raksha Bandhan review – women get a bad deal from dowry melodrama
Akshay Kumar is the noble-souled hero charged with marrying off his four sisters, while they are left mostly a…
- Culture, Documentary films, Film, Mount Everest, Mountaineering, Nepal, South and Central Asia, World news
The Wall of Shadows review – climbing film overturns smiling Sherpa stereotype
Eliza Kubarska’s documentary follows the plight of the Nepalis expected to take huge risks to aid western leis…
-
Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It review – infantile grossout horror-comedy
Kazakhstani caper sends Dastan off for one last fishing weekend with his mates before the baby arrives, but ho…
- Afghanistan, Culture, Documentary films, Film, Iraq, Media, Middle East and North Africa, South and Central Asia, WikiLeaks, World news
There Will Be No More Night review – chilling meditation on modern warfare
Éléonore Weber’s documentary, air-strike footage of pilots on night missions, could work well in a galleryThis…
-
Piano to Zanskar review – charming doc on a quixotic musical mission
Michal Sulima follows piano tuner Desmond O’Keeffe’s expedition to transport a piano to a village school high …
-
Romantic Road review – upper-class boomers on a polite Bollywood adventure
An elderly English couple take a 5,000-mile road trip across India and Bangladesh in their Rolls-Royce in this…