Omar Ahmed
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NASIR (Dir. Arun Karthick, 2020, India/Netherlands/Singapore)
The politics of racial hatred lingers in the rhetoric of a number of recent Indian films but it is often a subtext which comes and goes, failing to resonate such as in the overrated, faux Gully Boy, a deeply problematic work about Muslims in India today that wretchedly glances over the questions of representation in Continue reading
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CHARACHAR / Shelter of the Wings (Dir. Buddhadeb Dasgupta, India, 1994)
Filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta opens with Lakhinder (Rajit Kapur), a bird catcher who has been traumatised by the early death of his three year old son, freeing a succession of birds. Juxtaposed to the morning sky, the benign gesture of Lakhinder opening his hand to release a bird crystallises a key theme; the want to escape Continue reading
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IRRFAN KHAN (1967 – 2020) ‘I don’t know when I became old…’
Irrfan Khan had been ill for a while now. Many of us thought he had recovered for the better. His death has come as a shock to the film industry and at the age of 53 he has passed on tragically early in a career that was gaining momentum with each year. Back in 2017 Continue reading
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A RIFLE AND A BAG (Dir. NoCut Film Collective, 2020, India/Romania/Italy/Qatar)
What is the price for those who join a political revolution? And what happens once you surrender and attempt to reconcile with a political past? The Naxalite Movement, perhaps one of the most sustained political folk/tribal movements in the global south, is the focus of this brilliantly observed documentary by the NoCut Film Collective of Continue reading
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GAMAK GHAR (Dir. Achal Mishra, 2019, India)
Director Achal Mishra’s impressive debut film is a semi-formalist work, resorting to a succession of absorbing vignettes and framed as tableau in which the historical spatial and temporal configurations of an ancestral family house acts as more than just a pivot, fashioning a sense of the ephemeral and conjuring a steady yet absorbing rhythm. Choosing Continue reading
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