K-cinema as good as K-pop

With Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite making waves globally, South Korean films are all set to reach new heights It was 1998 when a film – Life is Beautiful – was the first foreign language one to be nominated for the Best Ensemble Award at Star Screen Guilds (SAG) Award. This year, history repeated itself – […]

Meat as metaphor

The films ‘Jallikattu’ and ‘Aamis’ deploy the desire for meat to explore the concepts of love, altruism, greed, aggression Given a choice between the predictable and the prohibited, what would you go for? How far would you go to gratify your greed for the forbidden? Have you ever considered exhibiting your deepest desires uninhibitedly? Have […]

The Making of Deepika Padukone: Actor, producer, and activist

In these troubled times, a brave woman has chosen to fight for the greater good, even though she has the most to lose IN 2005, fifteen-year-old teenager, Laxmi Agarwal was assaulted. Acid was thrown on her face and body by a close family friend, Naeem Khan. In an all too familiar saga, the attacker, a […]

Bringing to screen the toxicity of sexual harassment

The film and the mini-series trace how Richard Ailes of Fox News was brought down by Gretchen Carlson. Every time a predator is felled, the cause of justice is served “I am not a feminist” Megyn Kelly, played by Charlize Theron, says repeatedly in the film Bombshell, often more to reassure herself that she fits […]

‘It was a great learning process’

Debutants Riva Kishan and Priyaank Sharma talks about their film Sab Kushal Mangal, carrying forward their parents’ legacy and more THIS YEAR’S first new release Sab Kushal Mangal, directed by Karan Vishwanath Kashyap, is set to launch two new actors: Riva Kishan and Priyaank Sharma. While the former is the daughter of Bhojpuri superstar Ravi […]

The End – of Cinematic Journey 2019

As we enter 2020, here’s a flashback – where we’ll take a look at some of the best performances, the most underrated films of the year, which regional films made a mark and how Indian web series created waves across the country Best Performances (Male) l Ayushmann Khurrana: Bollywood’s ‘golden boy’ Ayushmann Khurrana, who also […]

A year of treading dangerously

As we move forward to 2020, a look at the films that defined the year gone past 2019 was a year when a mainstream Bollywood film spoke about India’s prevailing caste system for the first time. It was also the year when mainstream films took up topics like sexual health and sexuality, and explored it […]

‘The figure of inspiration is always female’

Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali talks about his childhood days, sleeping at a local train station during college and the influences on his filmmaking He is the flag-bearer of romantic films of this generation in Bollywood. With a career spanning over a decade, acclaimed filmmaker Imtiaz Ali has delivered massive hits, worked with superstars and has a […]