Culture/Entertainment
Deepa Mehta interview: ‘Good cinema is always political’
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Deepa Mehta discusses how her films highlight socio-political realities, and underlines that every film requires a different approach, technically or emotionally
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Movie review: Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon — a necessary, breath-taking perspective on a horrific tragedy
Killers of the Flower Moon, an adaptation of David Grann’s book of the same name, is Scorsese’s magnum opus and, arguably, his greatest creation ever
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Movie review: Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City shows why we can never outgrow childlike wonder
Asteroid City takes us on a voyage into the whimsical realm of meta-narrative storytelling, enchanting characters, and well-crafted visual gags, all executed with deliberate randomness
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‘Love is not a sin’: Shabana Azmi on queer rights, desire and identities
Shabana Azmi receives lifetime Achievement Award from the Yellowstone Film Festival (YIFF) in New Delhi at the screening of Sheer Qorma. She talks about what it means to be one of the poster woman of the LGBTQIA community.
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Film Review: Of Dolls and Daughters — The Tragedy of Motherhood
Maggie Gyellenhal’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel The Lost Daughter shows how suffocating, draining and consuming motherhood can be
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The Ananth Narayan Mahadevan interview: ‘Pure cinema in India struggles for survival’
The director and screenwriter on why making a film in India is more about creating a big consumer commodity and less about following a creative pursuit; why despite this he swears allegiance to pure cinema
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Review of Decoupled: A critical take on life, ideologies and human relationships
Manu Joseph’s web series streaming on Netflix is an illuminating meditation on relationships, with a calculated dose of hilarity, felicity and depth
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Decoupled: Why giving platform to Arya Iyer is progressive of Netflix
Arya loves to typify people because he loves to irritate those who take themselves too seriously
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Munawar Faruqui: Did Hate Have the Last Laugh?
The backlash against Dave Chappelle in the US around his Netflix show The Closer and Faruqui for “hurting religious sentiments” in India is contextually so different and yet seem to be rooted in a more basic conflict around comedy
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Film Review: Whatever Happened to James Bond in No Time to Die?
The final Craig movie feels swollen, portentous, like the skin of a balloon that can hold no more, while Craig himself gives an absolutely fabulous performance despite the ideological, wafer-thin script written out for him
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Film Review: Sardar Udham sits with poise in Shoojit Sircar’s and Vicky Kaushal’s filmography
Why do people kill? What lives on when you have killed? How do you convince yourself of its worthiness? How do you live with yourself? The film grapples with all these questions.
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Kashf, the Pakistani TV serial, has it all: clairvoyance, dream, the sacred and the business of religion
The Hum TV drama — written by Imran Nazir, directed by Danish Nawaz, and produced by Momina Duraid — is a complete rarity. It foregrounds questions about religious exploitation vs the sacred, without moral simplicity.
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‘The only way out is the way in’: Stephen Apkon on Disturbing the Peace, a documentary about and beyond the Israel-Palestine conflict
Stephen Apkon, co-director of Disturbing the Peace, talks about one of the most impressive documentaries of recent times that plumbs the depths of identity, transformation, and the challenges of integration
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Norm Macdonald, the Moth and Dostoevsky: Watching the former ‘Saturday Night Live’ comic was an experience
With the passing of Canadian stand-up comedian, writer, and actor Norman Gene Macdonald, the world has lost one of the world’s greatest comedic minds
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Why Soumitra Chatterjee’s Portrayal of Feluda remains Definitive
Feluda is a character firmly entrenched in the Bengali popular imagination, and inextricably bound with childhood nostalgia to boot
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Love, Ree(a)l Love: How Acting Can be Shamanistic, a Spiritual Union of the Real and Reel
In my work as an actress, the real often lacks an aesthetic, and therefore, eventually, does not become the bridge that will automatically take me across from the banal to the sublime, from real life to the reel life
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Mira Nair’s Adaptation of A Suitable Boy: A Tale of Missing Perspectives
Had the literary aspects of the novel been retained in the adaptation for the BBC, they might have been an important metaphor of the Indianness of English, and postcoloniality
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Mita Vasisht: ‘I want the directors to want me’
The seasoned actress on playing a grief-stricken mother, Gulabi, in her latest arthouse offering, Gajendra Shanker Shrotriya’s Kasaai, and why an actor should excite the director’s imagination
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Bhonsle: Of Home and Belonging, Fathers and Sons, God and Man
Devashish Makhija’s recently-released film, which features Manoj Bajpayee in the titular role of a police constable, puts the politics of regional chauvinism, the polarising debates about insiders/outsiders and the ideas of home and belonging in sharp focus
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Journey to the End of the (American) Night: A Conversation with Director Andrea Di Stefano
The Italian filmmaker on The Informer, his explosive thriller that dazzles with its depiction of the dynamics and ganglia of the American organized crime as well as of the fight against it by the FBI and the police
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Quentin Tarantino: Show and Tell
From Reservoir Dogs to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Tarantino blazes a trail with his celebration of cinema, his subversion of history, and his compulsion for homage and pastiche
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Short Circuit
Neelima Mathur, curator, Lakeside Documentary Festival, on the documentary filmmaking scene in India and the challenges of holding a festival dedicated to short films that brings the world to Nainital
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Waheed Murad: An Unmistakable Visionary
Waheed Murad (2 October 1938 – 23 November 1983), the legendary Pakistani film actor, producer and script writer, sentient human of a transcendental reality, existing within the subliminal cinemas of his mind, and essentially, in the full outreach of his arts.
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We are the results of the movies that we watch: Sebastiano Riso
Italian filmmaker Sebastiano Riso says a perfect, healthy love story doesn't exist
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Sridevi: When Grace Danced
Without formal training as a dancer, Sridevi effortlessly danced and proved her mettle. It was in her dance that Sridevi showed the best of her versatility and control as a performer
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Anjum Rajabali: In Search of a Good Story
On the jury for Cinestaan India’s Storytellers Script Contest, Anjum Rajabali is hunting for well-written scripts, based on original ideas
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Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam on Dharamshala International Film Festival
The director duo on their vision behind Dharamshala International Film Festival
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‘Often, it’s not the story, but the way you tell it that is important’
Konkona Sen Sharma on her journeys as an actor and director
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DIFF celebrates cinema from everywhere
The curtain rises on the sixth edition of Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), a festival with a difference, which celebrates cinema from everywhere
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Bimal Roy: The Outsider Auteur
Shoma A. Chatterji's The Cinema of Bimal Roy: An ‘Outsider’ Within analyses Bimal Roy’s films and their depiction of people outside the “mainstream”. An interview with Chatterji about the enduring legacy and timelessness of Bimal Roy's cinema
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‘As actors, we’ve to explore personally what works for us’
Tannishtha Chatterjee on being a crossover actor, her role in Doctor Rakhmabai and her process of acting
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A role must take me in an uncomfortable zone: Nawazuddin Siddiqui
To Nawazuddin Siddiqui, every role brings a set of new challenges. He says actors have to learn to adapt to the rhythm of a filmmaker, fit into a director’s vision. The actor on his craft and career:
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People across boundaries connect with pure emotion: Shubhashish Bhutiani
Filmmaker Shubhashish Bhutiani, whose film Mukti Bhawan won the Special Jury Award at the 64th National Awards, talks about his journey, his training and craft
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World Cinema: Israel’s master of mise en scene
Dan Wolman, veteran Israeli filmmaker, says he sees himself as a storyteller
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The story behind Oscar-nominated Lion: An evening with Saroo Brierley
To celebrate the release of the film Lion, an adaptation of Saroo Brierley’s autobiographical book A Long Way Home, the Australian High Commission recently organised an event which saw the author talk about his journey in a conversation with author and literary critic Nilanjana Roy. Edited excerpts from the conversation.
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Om Puri: An unparalleled actor of the parallel cinema
Om Puri’s body of work serves as a superlative course in the acting discipline
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