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Kannada’s new films, young directors are going places
Saibal Chatterjee
Nationwide interest in Kannada cinema has never been higher. Thanks to the success of Kantara, the two chapters of KGF ...
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Off to Cannes after 2 years, can’t wait to be back there!
Saibal Chatterjee
THE Cannes Film Festival, the world’s most important celebration of cinema, is approaching a landmark. The edition that is set ...
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Mahishasur Marddini is a film with the feel of theatre
Saibal Chatterjee
NOTHING that a feature-length fiction film postulates on the hurdles that women face in India can be deemed an eye-opener. ...
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A full house for Arab voices by the Red Sea
Saibal Chatterjee
THE El Gouna Film Festival (GFF) is half a decade old but nothing it does suggests that it is only ...
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In Kolkata, a saviour for small films
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
NANDAN, the West Bengal Film Centre in central Kolkata, is a complex unlike any other in India. In August, as ...
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Seven gems that are worth your time
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
In the glut of Indian films that flooded the streaming platforms during the ongoing pandemic, a bunch of titles stood ...
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It is the year of personal stories in film
Saibal Chatterjee
IN early 2020, when Arun Karthick’s critically acclaimed Tamil film Nasir was making waves at the International Film Festival of ...
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Borderlands tells 6 personal stories of separation
THE lines that cleave the lives of the six protagonists of Samarth Mahajan’s 67-minute documentary Borderlands are as much physical ...
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On a docu hunt? Check out 9 of the best festivals
Saibal Chatterjee
THE documentary film can educate, inspire and captivate. Across the world this genre of film- making continues to rise in ...
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Tamil’s new filmmakers reach out to the world
ONE of the more exciting developments in the contemporary independent cinema space in India is unfolding outside the pale of ...
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Six films for you beyond Netflix and Prime
HAVING spent a year cooped up at home, we have all, to varying degrees, ploughed through Netflix and Amazon Prime ...
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10 Bengali films worth watching
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Cinema's greats like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen once held Bengali cinema’s flag aloft on the global stage. But ...
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Tired of Netflix? Check out these other websites
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Want to go beyond Netflix and Amazon Prime? A whole range of streaming options out there can deliver the kind ...
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In Venice, Tamhane gets more notice
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
THIS year in Venice, The Disciple, by a 33-year-old Indian writer-director, made history by winning the award for Best Screenplay and the International ...
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Shonajhurir Bhoot and the spirit of the forest
Saibal Chatterjee
Incongruity is woven, intricately and inextricably, into the images, sounds and experiential spectrum of Shonajhurir Bhoot (Ghost of the Golden ...
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Will this be a gap year for film festivals?
Saibal Chatterjee
The COVID-19 crisis has felled the world’s premier film festival, the one that draws thousands of people to the French ...
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Shut Up Sona: The life of a rebellious singer
Saibal Chatterjee
Songstress Sona Mohapatra is a defiant outlier. Hindi film music may have helped her gain fame but she does not ...
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11 PSBT films have made it to Berlinale
Sidika Sehgal
Films from Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT)’s stable consistently attract a global audience at film festivals along with awards and ...
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In search of Kastoori: Kamble's film reflects his life
Saibal Chatterjee
A tree outside Vinod Kamble’s home in a village in Barshi block of Maharashtra’s Solapur district planted in him a ...
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Being landless in Punjab
Aranya Sawhney Malik
It is a metaphoric question that Landless begins with: Do scarecrows have their own land? The film depicts movingly the ...
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In Adoor's footsteps?
Saibal Chatterjee
It is no fluke that Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, 42, is one of Kerala’s most feted filmmakers. He stands apart from ...
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Manto: Nandita Das’ film on the last years
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
The narrative canvas of Manto, actress Nandita Das’ second film as a director, is separated by over half a century ...
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A world at war comes to Cannes in films
Saibal Chatterjee, Cannes
From first-time directors to 88-year-old agent provocateur Jean-Luc Godard, a slew of filmmakers in the official selection of the 71st ...
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'To Let’ is about being homeless in Chennai
Saibal Chatterjee, Chennai
Despite having shot nine films over 10 years and a bit, including the 2007 Indian Panorama entry Kallori, Chennai-based cinematographer ...
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Silence of 3 women: A film on rape survivors
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Titled White, Kolkata-based Aneek Chaudhuri’s new film is focused on the darkness that descends on the lives of sexual assault ...
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Small film wins hearts, rivals blockbusters
Saibal Chatterjee, Kolkata
On 29 December, the final Friday of 2017, a minimalist father-son drama starring Soumitra Chatterjee and Prosenjit Chatterjee opened in ...
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Toronto festival's stories of strife and salvation
Saibal Chatterjee, Toronto
Hollywood star Angelina Jolie had two films in the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) — one as director, the ...
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The other films at Cannes beyond the glitz
Saibal Chatterjee, Cannes
A young Syrian refugee attempting to sneak into Hungary is shot down by the border police. As he lies wounded ...
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The soul behind the song
Anita Anand
Nirmal Chander Dandriyal’s film, Zikr Us Parivash Ka, opens in the narrow bylanes of Lucknow in search of Begum Akhtar’s ...
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Assam’s golden voice
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Folk singer Pratima Barua Pandey (1934-2002), whose unconventional life choices, exceptional talent and mellifluous voice fuelled a career that helped expose ...
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Strange choice of Rustom
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
The National Film Awards (NFA) and controversy have been inseparable in recent times. Until the mid-1990s, the central government-mandated ...
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How the Bhagalpur blindings inspired more blindings
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Thirty-five years after the grisly Bhagalpur blindings — a case in which a group of policemen pinned down 33 undertrials ...
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Adoor's new film explores consumerism, greed
Saibal Chatterjee, Thiruvananthapuram
Telling engaging, crowd-pleasing stories comes easy to competent filmmakers. Exceptional directors possess the skill to go beyond simple linear narratives ...
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Film festival converts Dharamshala into film hub
Saibal Chatterjee, Dharamshala
When filmmaking couple Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam launched the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) in 2012, it was an ...
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PSBT story: 630 films, 230 awards, 400 filmmakers
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Rajiv Mehrotra, Managing Trustee, Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT), is a media all-rounder. Radio, television, filmmaking and writing — he ...
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Goutam Ghosh’s film links present with Partition
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
The profoundly moving story that unfolds in veteran Bengali director Goutam Ghose’s latest film Shankhachil is set in the present, ...
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Northeast catches the eye
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Two revelatory tales set in the Northeast — one centred on threatened floating homes, the other about life in a ...
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An angry Dalit film
Saibal Chatterjee. New Delhi
The India that debutant writer-director Bikas Ranjan Mishra wades into with the hard-hitting caste oppression drama, Chauranga, is a blighted ...
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Bold new cinema arrives with untold stories
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
A few years ago when Haobam Paban Kumar, then a student of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) ...
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There is a whole new woman in Indian cinema
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
Gender sensitivity has never been Hindi cinema’s strength. The mainstream Mumbai movie industry has always been notoriously male-dominated. It accords ...
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How three social films also set out to entertain
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
The Mumbai movie industry works with safe narrative templates. It rarely, if ever, tells real stories that are crying out ...
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Miss Lovely and other brave find money and audiences
Saibal Chatterjee, New Delhi
The world has shrunk and talented Indian filmmakers who go beyond the Hindi film industry’s commercial concerns are finding finance ...
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