カテゴリー: Film
Shot over 10 years, Sheena Sumaria’s documentary follows an Indian fishing village as it takes on global financial giants to protect its biodiversity and the residents’ livelihoodsA quiet coastal village in India’s Gulf of Kutch is the site of an ancie…
Preeti Panigrahi is excellent as Mira, a prefect dealing with first love and, unusually, sex, as she navigates the patriarchy in 90s north India ‘Some teachers thought a girl wasn’t up to it,” says a veteran female teacher with a weary roll of the eye….
Documentary on the 2020-21 protests in India over three farm acts is interesting in patches, but doesn’t go anywhere unexpectedYou might suspect that documentaries like this – quietly didactic, discreetly partisan, yet dry enough to seem faintly journa…
Documentary expertly follows the only woman to have climbed the mountain 10 times through spectacular scenery and a traumatic personal lifeThis portrait of title subject Lhakpa Sherpa, the only woman to have summited Mount Everest 10 times, is so dense…
Two assessors ask questions but it’s the detail and nuance that is so compelling in this gently absorbing documentaryIn Bhutan, they measure progress not just by GDP, but also Gross National Happiness. This quiet, gently absorbing documentary follows t…
This tasty piece of action cinema provides crunches, squelches and and spatter effects as the good guys and bad guys delightfully smash each other to piecesThe first shot fired in Indian Hindi-language action thriller Kill isn’t unleashed with deadly i…
In India being a female fan of Shah Rukh Khan is not just about a love of film – it’s a form of resistance against restrictive gender norms Shah Rukh Khan may be an Indian cinematic legend and star of record-breaking Bollywood blockbusters but he is no…
Amitabh Bachchan plays a mythological warrior in a withered dystopian city where desert car chases, CGI magic and a semi-divine dictator ruleThis fizzy Telugu-language mashup of Indian mythology, martial arts and Bollywood-style dance-romance-and-melod…
Fears for the future of democracy and tolerance recede after authoritarian PM left reliant on coalition partnersIn the leafy surrounds of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a pocket of students sat beneath a banyan tree engaged in impassio…
Janhvi Kapoor plays a medical student with the prospect of a pro career in the game, with Rajkummar Rao as the husband who coaches herHindi cinema has thus far spent 2024 in retreat, its commercial failures compounded by a successful run of south India…
Shot over 15 years between Denmark and Pakistan, the film-maker captures day-to-day life in Karachi, and explores how freedom and human rights are not doled out equallyShot over the course of 15 years, Anita Mathal Hopland’s documentary provides a cine…
Cannes film festivalPayal Kapadia’s glorious Cannes competition selection is an absorbing story of three nurses that is full of humanityThere is a freshness and emotional clarity in Payal Kapadia’s Cannes competition selection, an enriching humanity an…
Societal threats are already heavy for medical student Mariam when bereavement leaves her undefended and the story untethers from realismPakistan’s patriarchal society is a too credible source of horror in this promising feature debut from Canadian-Pak…
Flickering Lights review – how the arrival of electricity heralded peace in a turbulent Indian state
Years in the making, this documentary shows preparations for the arrival of mains power in a village in Nagaland as part of a deal with the Indian governmentWith great patience over a period of years, Indian film-makers Anirban Dutta and Anupama Sriniv…
Vidya Balan shines in this witty remake that sees a married couple, both cheating on each other, on the verge of breaking upThe algebra of love is a multiple-choice conundrum in Shirsha Guha Thakurta’s debut, a witty remake of Azazel Jacobs’ romance Th…