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The Jagran Film Festival (Jff), celebrated as the world’s largest traveling film festival, returns with its 13th edition, carrying forward its philosophy of Good Cinema for Everyone. Presented by Rajnigandha, the festival will kickstart on September 4 in Delhi, travel across 14 cities, and culminate in Mumbai on November 16 — making it India’s largest and most far-reaching cinematic celebration. Since its inception, the Jagran Film Festival (Jff) has become a landmark celebration of storytelling, cultural exchange, and cinematic excellence.

This year, Jff pays tribute to cinematic legends with special celebrations including the centenary of Guru Dutt, 50 years of Shabana Azmi in cinema, 50 years of the iconic film Sholay, and more. It also honours industry stalwarts Shyam Benegal, Manoj Kumar, Shaji N. Karun, and Pritish Nandy for their lasting contributions to Indian cinema.

Guided by mentors like Subhash Ghai, Khusboo Sundar, Adil Hussain, and A. Sreekar Prasad, and curated by Srinivasa Santhanam,...

There is a redemptive streak running across this middling comedy. A restorative impulse that makes it notches better than our other recent situational comedies about spirits and other UFOs. Son Of Sardar 2 promises us the sun moon and stars, and delivers something above a dud.

It comes close to being one. A dud, I mean. But then there is always that little spark which keeps us watching till the end even when a wedding sequence at the end overstays its welcome to the point of ennui.

Son Of Sardar 2 is better than the first film in the farcical franchise. It often surprises us with its pockets of genuine mirth, especially the female Pakistani foursome – yes, there is a sporting Pakistani angle to this ha-ha-thon—played by Mrunal Thakur, Kubra Sait, Deepak Dobriyal and Roshni Walia. The quartet faintly echoes Shyam Benegal’s Mandi in that the protective older women want...

In this new This Day That Year feature, Subhash K Jha looks back at 2004’s Julie. Julie isn’t a great film. But it’s an honest and moving work deserving of an attentive audience Here’s a tale of a hooker that hooks you. Go with open eyes and mind, and you will come away an enriched person from this elevating film about a Fallen Woman. She’s Julie. A nice, wholesome, impish girl from Goa who ends up in 5-star hotels of Mumbai peddling what in the words of the film’s excellent dialogue writer , “a woman’s most effective weapon”. Her body.

There have been many films on an unsullied woman’s journey into the arms of corruption—some outstanding, others mediocre, and then the rest plainly exploitative.

Deepak Shivdasani’s film falls in a different,refreshing and often startling , niche.

The segmented plot (tautly written and...

A few days after having watched Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022), I found myself going back to an old favorite – Mandi, directed by Shyam Benegal and based on a story by the famous Urdu writer, Ghulam Abbas. It tells the story of a brothel in Hyderabad run by Rukmani Bai. Out of the many intriguing aspects of the film, I realized how much I look forward to the character of Tungrus, played by Naseeruddin Shah, a faithful helper filled with alcohol and prophetic words by night, and successfully tames a monkey by morning.

Shah impersonates the character so well that it is difficult to imagine that in the same year (1983), he starred in films like Masoom and Woh Saat Din. Such is the prowess of the auteur, Naseeruddin Shah! Aged 71 now and hailed as one of the best actors to grace the Indian film industry, he continues to bring...

Subhash K Jha looks back at Madhur Bhandarkar’s Corporate, which released in 2006, in a new installment of his series This Day That Year.

All of Madhur Bhandarkar’s best works—and this certainly qualifies as a fine progressive piece of cinema—have finally boiled down to the question of the conscience and the individual.

Kay Kay Menon playing the ambitious but conscientious corporate wheeler-dealer run by an unscrupulous tycoon (Rajat Kapoor) who would go to any length to make his way up the corporate ladder, is so adept at showing his troubled conscience you wonder which came first… the conscience or movies crystallizing its dilemma.

The corporate world so much a part of television serials, has never been exposed on the large screen since Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug. To his credit Bhandarkar, with considerable help from his editor, slices through these ambition-driven people with the urgent hiss of a car negotiating a craggy highway.

Manoj Bajpayee is one of the finest actors of our generation. His foothold in Hindi cinema has spanned both the commercial and the independent. The most striking feature of his varied filmography is how well he consolidates the nuance in his body language even when the films he acts in are unquestionably mediocre. His voice modulation and distinctive style of delivering dialogues ensure that we remember the name of the character that he played.

Recently, he mesmerized with his astute blend of a middle-class man’s mediocrity and the dark humour of a Raw agent in The Family Man, Raj and Dk’s superb show in which he owned every frame with his masterful consistency.

Similar to Manoj Bajpayee: The 15 Irrfan Khan Movie Performances

For me, great acting comes when the actor manages to move you through his quietude and the most unnoticed of sequences. I believe that an actor...

The film opens with a life hanging by a thread, suspended not by a court’s final decree but by the will of a grieving family. In Iran, Tahereh has served a fourteen-year prison sentence for killing her husband. Now released on a temporary parole, her existence is not her own, and the streets of Tehran offer a precarious and conditional freedom.

Her fate lies with a specific tenet of Iranian Sharia law: the deeply personal practice of qisas (retribution) and diya (blood money). Here, the state steps back and places the power of life and death into the hands of the victim’s family. They alone can demand the execution of the perpetrator, or they can choose to grant forgiveness in exchange for a negotiated financial payment.

The film immediately establishes these harrowing, life-or-death stakes. Tahereh’s future rests entirely on the judgment of her late husband’s brother,...

Mirch Masala.Spanning almost three decades, the Indian Parallel Cinema movement produced more than 200 feature films, outnumbering those of the French New Wave and the New German Cinema combined. The sheer prolificity of the period confirms its historical significance but makes its character and contours difficult to comprehend in the aggregate. A new comprehensive study by Omar Ahmed, The Revolution of Indian Parallel Cinema in the Global South (1968–1995), surveys the birth and development of Parallel Cinema, contextualizing it in the political, economic, and social crucible of a young nation. The book traces the early influences on the movement, the effect of the Emergency years in the mid-1970s—during which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ruled by decree, censored the media, and imprisoned political enemies—and, finally, the movement’s decline in the face of right-wing majoritarianism.The story begins in the 1940s, when the Indian People’s Theatre Association (Ipta...

The story of a creator fighting for recognition against the currents of their time is a familiar one, echoing through artistic histories from the studios of Mumbai to the ateliers of Paris. Beatrice Minger’s film E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea offers a focused, piercing look at one such struggle, centered on the significant yet often sidelined Irish designer, Eileen Gray.

Born into aristocratic privilege, Gray turned her back on it to pursue a fiercely independent creative life. The film wisely avoids being a sweeping biography. Instead, it anchors its narrative in a single, profound act of creation: her modernist villa on the French Riviera, E.1027. This was not just a structure of glass and concrete; it was a sanctuary built in the late 1920s with her lover, the architectural journalist Jean Badovici.

The house’s name itself is a secret code of their intimacy: E for Eileen,...

The iconic Rekha spoke to Subhash K Jha about the making one of her classic films, Umrao Jaan in this fascinating feature.

Muzaffar Ali’s classic study of the Kotha culture in the Lucknow of the 1850s Umrao Jaan is all set to release on June 27. Rekha, who received the National Award for her mellow, muted meditative performance, doesn’t think much of herself in this, her most celebrated work.

There is a supreme stillness that shrouds Rekha’s character, Umrao Jaan Adaa; an inexplicable tranquillity which Rekha famously called “doing nothing”. Not too many of our actors know much about the art of doing nothing. In Indian cinema, the more you do on screen, the more your chances of being noticed. Rekha took the risk and sailed through a character which is dreamy, distant, sensuous, and impregnable. I don’t think any of the men who cross her path...

The 25th anniversary edition of the New York Indian Film Festival — one of the nation’s leading showcases of independent Indian cinema — unspools at New York’s Angelika through Sunday, June 22.

Officially opening Friday, June 20 with Raam Reddy’s 2024 Berlinale selection “The Fable,” the festival includes Anurag Kashyap’s intense Hindi-language thriller “Kennedy” as the Centerpiece on June 21. Kashyap will also host a master class on the challenges facing Bollywood and the future of independent cinema in India.

There’s also a tribute to late, great Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal, with a 4K restoration of his 1976 landmark “Manthan,” about India’s White Revolution and revived by the Film Heritage Foundation.

As part of a program of films honoring master storytellers, the New York Indian Film Festival will also screen Dev Benegal’s 2024 short for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “An Arrested Moment.” The film explores Oscar-winning director James Ivory’s...

The film Straw opens not with a bang, but with the crushing weight of a life lived on the margins. We meet Janiyah, a single mother in Atlanta, through a montage of domestic struggle—a color-drained apartment, mounting bills, and the ever-present exhaustion etched onto her face.

Her world is one of quiet desperation, centered on providing for her young daughter, Aria, whose chronic medical needs add another layer of financial strain. The film’s cinematography here is stark and intimate, refusing to romanticize her poverty.

This focus on the individual against a failing social structure is a powerful, universal theme, reminiscent of the gritty realism found in Indian Parallel Cinema from directors like Shyam Benegal, who similarly documented the lives of the dispossessed. Janiyah’s persistent kindness, like giving her last change to a neighbor, establishes her not as a flawed person but as a good person in an impossible situation,...

Subhash K Jha celebrates Paresh Rawal’s 70th birthday by looking back at five of the noted actors best performances.

Of late we don’t see much of Paresh Rawal. This is a pity, really. He is such a fine actor driven by an instinctive empathy with middleclass values. Rawal manages to make every character even in the silliest of films seem vibrant.

Lately in the news for opting out of Hera Pheri 3, in an interview to me in 2007, Paresh had said, “I’m not insecure about money. I’m insecure about good actors. After I watch Naseer or Om perform, I stay awake the whole night. My values are middle-class. I don’t want to be rich. I want to be successful…. I have worked so hard to arrive at this juncture in my career where I can shoulder whole films. But it depends on what you are shouldering.

Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga Kapoor and filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane are among 16 jury members set to judge 12 competition categories at the 16th edition of India’s Kashish Pride Film Festival.

Joining Monga Kapoor and Motwane are director-producer Abhishek Chaubey and producer Neeraj Churi as jury members for the Kashish QDrishti Film Grant, which awards $3000 to an LGBTQ+ identifying filmmaker to make a short film. Actor Renuka Shahane will support two runners-up.

The narrative jury features actor Shishir Sharma, actor and TV host Shruti Seth and filmmaker Tanuja Chandra, who will adjudge best narrative feature and shorts, best screenplay and best performance awards. These categories receive backing from Taiwanese streaming platform GagaOoLala, production house Samruddhi Studios and actor Abhay Kulkarni.

Documentary filmmakers Bishaka Dutta, Prateek Vats and Shubhra Chatterjee comprise the documentary jury, selecting winners of the unity in diversity documentary feature and short awards, supported by K.F. Patil Charitable Trust.

Shyam Benegal’s classic Sardari Begum which completes 29 years on May 23 starred Kirron Kher, Amrish Puri, Smriti Mishra and Rajit Kapur. In a conversation about the film with Subhash K Jha, Rajit Kapur reminisces on the making of the film and his challenging character.

Your memories of Sardari Begum?

Yes, there are memories. Most of it was shot in Film City here in Mumbai. Very interesting for me because the character came straight after playing Mahatma Gandhi in Shyam Benegal’s The Making of the Mahatma.

It was a complete switch?

This halo of the good Samaritan I was able to shed by playing this lecherous pimp. And the interesting thing was that I was playing three different ages and there were just about two scenes in each of these age groups. So, yeah, I found it meaty and challenging to, you know, have these just two scenes in each...

One of Shyam Benegal’s most neglected films Sardari Begum completes 29 years on May 23. Interestingly, the master-creator cast two actresses Kirron Kher and Smriti Mishra as the older and younger version of the title character.

This didn’t work.

Speaking on the film one of its lead players Rajit Kapoor says, “Oh wow, 29 years! You know the thing I remember the most about Sardari Begum is that Shyam Babu offered me the role just after I played Gandhi in The Making Of The Mahatma. From the epitome of goodness to playing the sadistic lecherous pimp (laughs) …it was a dream turn-around for me as an actor.”

Rajit also recalls the enchanting music by Vanraj Bhatia and Ashok Patki. “The music …of my God!… the songs were incredible. At a time when very few films were using Hindustani classical… the songs still resonate.”

Rajit had to undergo various stages of physical transformation for Sardari Begum.

Jigar Nagda’s debut film A Boy Who Dreamt of Electricity (2024) is a story of a young Adivasi boy who is born into a hapless system that does not account for his rights. To make matters worse, his house on top of the hill does not have electricity and no one seems to be concerned. What course of action does the young boy, Bheru, take?

The Rajasthani film, A Boy Who Dreamt of Electricity, is going to be showcased at the Habitat Film Festival this week, on May 22, 2025. We recently had the chance to have a chat with filmmaker Jigar Nagda about his film: how he tries to present the truth by being in line with the right facts, the response the film evokes from the Western audience to a throbbing Indian issue, and his five cinematic highs.

Damayanti Ghosh: I wanted to tell you that this must be the...

Subhash K Jha lists the best performances by Girish Karnad in this special feature.

He was a man of many talents: scholar, academician, activist, political commentator, theatre and film actor. But Bollywood knows him for his understated performances in unforgettable films in the 1970s and 80s, which changed the way we look at mainstream acting. Here’s a list of his best Bollywood films.

1. Nishant (1975): Playing the docile, helpless school teacher whose wife (Shabana Azmi) is abducted by the village zamindar, Karnad brought dignity and restraint into a situation which screamed for dramatic eruptions. Karnad never overacted. He was measured at a time when drama flourished.

2. Swami (1977): This was the second film where Girish Karnad starred as the silent, undemanding, doting spouse to Shabana Azmi, and this time he was even more of a brilliant projectile, hitting the right emotions. In this superb adaptation of Saratchandra Chatterjee’s novel,...

Amitabh Bachchan speaks to Subhash K Jha in praise of poet and playwright Vijay Tendulkar, whose Death Anniversary we observe today.

Vijay Tendulkar was not only a powerful playwright with a political perspective, he also exerted a strong influence on Hindi cinema in screen adaptations particularly Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh and Ardh Satya, Shyam Benegal’s Manthan and Jagmohan Mundhra’ Kamla.

Amitabh Bachchan recalls the doyen of Marathi literature with reverence. “Vijay Tendulkarji was a strong and fearless writer and a great mind. I never had the opportunity of spending any quality time with him, but on occasion I did meet him during common social events. Barring the exchange of courtesies and acknowledging each other’s creative contribution, such moments were rushed and hurried. But one reads a lot about him in the media and through his interviews.”

Mr Bachchan is full of admiration for the man who rewrote many rules of stage-writing.

Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson picks up where the 2019 exposé left off, tracing Wade Robson and James Safechuck’s quest for justice through civil courts. Filmmaker Dan Reed frames their decade-long battle with the clarity of a vérité documentarian, intercutting split-screen Zoom hearings with archival footage.

This approach calls to mind India’s parallel cinema of the 1970s and ’80s, when directors like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani foregrounded marginalized voices against institutional power. Here, survivors replace protagonists of bygone social dramas, their testimony standing in for the raw authenticity those Indian auteurs prized.

As with Satyajit Ray’s humanist eye, Reed captures fleeting expressions—Robson’s tight jaw, Safechuck’s distant gaze—to convey internal conflict without didactic narration. The editing rhythm mirrors street montages from Bollywood’s New Wave, shifting between press backlash and small-town courtroom whispers.

A sparse musical score underscores emotional weight, recalling the minimalist...

Turning 21 this week is Shyam Benegal’s biopic Netajji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero. Sachin Khedekar, who turns 60 today, talks with Subhas K Jha on playing the lead character Subhas Chandra Bose.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose has always been a controversial figure. Filmmakers have shied away from delving too deep into Netaji’s life.

Not Shyam Benegal. In 2014 he made a brave if flawed bio-pic on Netaji entitled Netajji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero. The story goes that media baron Subrato Roy commissioned Shyam Benegal to make the best-possible bio-pic on Netaji, budget unlimited.

“So how much do you think you will need to do full justice to Netaji?” the millionaire wondered aloud.

“10 crores?” Benegal whose budgets had never gone beyond 5 crores, ventured boldly.

“Take 60. But give me a bio-pic on Netaji that will never be forgotten,” Subrato offered.

Benegal who had never known such a budget just...

“Reeling,” Yana Alliata’s striking debut, greets us with a single, fluid take that guides Ryan (Ryan Wuestewald) across his family’s O‘ahu estate. The shot’s patient choreography—reminiscent of the long takes in Satyajit Ray’s Charulata or Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s early work—invites us into Ryan’s fractured world as he rediscovers faces and places made strange by haunting gaps in his memory. The luau’s sunlit warmth and rhythmic beat of drums evoke the communal rituals of Bollywood’s colorful crowd scenes, only here they underscore a growing dissonance: laughter and volleyball amid an undercurrent of isolation.

Much like the parallel cinema of India, which privileged human struggle over spectacle, “Reeling” blends scripted drama with improvised moments drawn from Alliata’s real-life friends and family. The result is a palpable authenticity—every roasted pig and whispered greeting feels rooted in genuine emotion. Over a lean 70 minutes,...

Amy Wang’s debut feature opens on a deceptively familiar scene: a shy Chinese-American girl pinching her nose before a classroom mirror. Set against a hall lined with oversized prom-queen portraits, Slanted mixes high-school comedy rhythms with body-horror jolts to ask a deeply urgent question: How far will someone go to claim acceptance? At its core is Joan Huang, whose longing to be crowned prom queen drives her into the offices of Ethnos—a clandestine clinic promising an “ethnic modification” that transforms her into the blonde, blue-eyed Jo Hunt.

Joan’s journey reflects a timely global trend in films that explore mutable identity, echoing recent South Korean and European titles grappling with digital self-image. Yet there’s a clear parallel with Indian parallel cinema of the 1970s and ’80s, when filmmakers like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani used everyday settings to critique social pressures. Wang borrows that realism—portraying a janitor father’s quiet dignity,...

Under the neon glare of Miami’s art world—and beneath its opulence—Forge invites viewers into the intricate dance of deception. Jing Ai Ng’s first feature, unveiled at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival, traces the daring path of Coco and Raymond Zhang, Chinese American siblings whose exquisite forgeries bankroll a precarious existence. When trust‑fund heir Holden Beaumont recruits them for a monumental scam, their calculated precision collides with the determined pursuit of FBI agent Emily Lee.

Shot by Leo Purman, Miami emerges as both sun‑drenched paradise and shadowy underbelly, its vibrant palettes and looming decay echoing traditions of Indian parallel cinema that merge realism with symbolic weight. As Forge unfolds, it channels the moral complexity of Bollywood capers—where family loyalty and personal ambition tangle in equal measure—and raises questions of belonging, artifice and self‑definition in a globalized age. This section will explore how...

as he celebrates his 72nd birthday, veteran actor Anang Desai of Khichdi fame looks back at his brilliant career in this special conversation with Subhash K Jha.

What does a birthday mean to you at this age?

I’m extremely happy that I have been able to celebrate my birthday all these years, including my birthday today. It has been a fascinating journey, and I thank God for that. Every day I wake up and thank God for the lovely life and healthy life that I’ve got. It is a wonderful journey which I will always cherish and definitely I like to celebrate my birthday with my dear and near ones. It’s a pleasure to be with the family every day, and especially on this day.

How do you look back on your journey so far?

I look at my journey with a lot of gratitude. I’ve...

Looking back at Nandita Das’ Lal Salaam, Subhash K Jha focuses on the film that released in 2002 in this new installment of This Day That Year.

The trouble with cinema on caste and economic oppression is, it makes very oppressive viewing. If we go back in time to notable films on the theme of subjugation, both offbeat and mainstream, we seldom encounter pleasant memories about products from this genre of cinema. While a stray Mother India or Ganga Jumna managed to elevate the subject of oppression into high art, the other raw realistic expositions on the theme like Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh, Shyam Benegal’s Ankur, Prakash Jha’s Damul and Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen were bitter pills to swallow.

First-time director Gangavihari Boratte paints a bleak picture of our abysmally unequal social order in Lal Salaam, which completed 23 years on May 3. Shot on strikingly green and grim locations...

The New York Indian Film Festival (Nyiff) is rolling out the red carpet for its silver jubilee with a program that bridges cinematic generations, connecting Oscar-winner James Ivory’s enduring fascination with India to contemporary star power led by Manoj Bajpayee in the festival’s opening night selection.

Set to run June 20-22 at Manhattan’s Village East by Angelika, Nyiff’s milestone 25th edition will spotlight “An Arrested Moment,” a short documentary from The Metropolitan Museum of Art directed by Dev Benegal that explores Ivory’s long-standing relationship with Indian art and culture.

The festival kicks off with the East Coast premiere of “The Fable,” starring acclaimed actor Manoj Bajpayee alongside Priyanka Bose and Deepak Dobriyal. Directed by Raam Reddy, whose debut “Thithi” captured the Golden Leopard at Locarno, the film debuted at the 2024 Berlinale.

This year’s lineup reflects both reverence for cinema’s past and excitement for its future.

Surekha Sikri never thought of herself as a brilliant actor. I first became aware of Surekha Sikri in a film called Parinati way back in 1989. Before that, she was in Govind Nihalani’s monumental Partition saga Tamas, where she didn’t have much to do.

Says Prakash Jha, “I would like to take credit for giving Surekhaji a meaty role long before Badhaai Ho.”

Tamas director Govind Nihalani had intimated to me about this “explosive actress who chews into a scene, no matter how brief.” This, coming from the director who thought nothing of dismissing Shabana Azmi, meant a lot. I wondered what was so special about Surekha.

Parinati answered the question. It was my actual introduction to Sikri’s secret vault of talent. A Rajasthani moral fable where she played wife to Basant Joglekar, Surekha Sikri brought into the dense drama an impishness and a Promethean provocativeness. She was...

Subhash K Jha revisits Onir’s delicately drawn Queer drama, My Brother… Nikhil, which starred Juhi Chawla, Sanjay Suri, and Purab Kohli, as it clocks 20 years since its release.

There was something happening to Hindi cinema in 2005… Something strange, stirring, exciting, and pathbreaking. After Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3 and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black, you would think our cinema has given enough of the unconventional palate for the audience to chew on.

Not so! In My Brother… Nikhil, an intimate and yet far-reaching study of family ties, social castigation, and the resilience that makes the human spirit ride over daunting adversities—much like the swimmer-hero of debutant director Onir’s heartwarming film who rides the oceans … until oceanic events overtake his well-ordered life.

First things first. My Brother… Nikhil is a film about a very critical social cause, AIDS, to be precise….The imprecise parameters of the complex issue are...

Subhash K Jha, in another This Day That Year feature, he takes a look back at the fabulous satire of Shyam Benegal’s Well Done Abba, which released in 2009.

Drawn from the innermost recesses of its extraordinarily versatile, profound, and prolific creator’s mind, somewhat like the water that emerges from Boman Irani’s well at the end of this delicately-drawn satire on babu-giri and red-tapism, Well Done Abba is a little sparkling gem of a film.

Its humour, warmth and tenderness are not as easily obtainable as in Benegal’s previous comedy Welcome To Sajjanpur, which was far more readily and immediately engaging. Well Done Abba takes longer to settle and sink into our satiated sensibilities. Long parts of the film describing the Hyderabadi protagonist Armaan Ali’s (Boman Irani) close encounters with babu-giri and the bewildering maze of the bureaucracy (somewhat like Pankaj Kapoor in the serial Office Office...

The Cinevesture International Film Festival (Ciff) is set to return for its second edition in Chandigarh, India, from March 20-23, 2025. With an extensive lineup of international and regional films, as well as an expanded industry platform, the festival aims to solidify its place on the global cinema calendar.

French director Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” an Oscar-winning film, will be among the headliners of the World Canvas section, alongside Magnus von Horn’s Oscar-nominated Danish drama “The Girl with the Needle.” The festival opens with the Indian premiere of “A Normal Family,” the Korean drama by Hur Jin-ho that made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. The opening night will also include a special screening of the Punjabi short “The Cycle” by Arpita Mukherjee.

Ciff’s World Canvas section will showcase 15 international features, while the India Unveiled category will highlight 17 homegrown titles. Special screenings and student films will complement the festival’s programming.

The Cinevesture International Film Festival (Ciff) has revealed a diverse lineup for its second edition, set to run March 20-23 in Chandigarh, India, featuring notable Oscar winners and nominees alongside celebrated regional cinema.

Jacques Audiard’s Oscar-winning “Emilia Perez”headlines the World Canvas section, alongside Magnus von Horn’s Oscar-nominated Danish drama “The Girl with the Needle.”

The festival will open with the India premiere of Korean feature “A Normal Family,” directed by Hur Jin-ho, which first bowed at the Toronto International Film Festival. A special screening of the Punjabi short film “The Cycle” by Arpita Mukherjee will accompany the opening night festivities.

For its sophomore outing, Ciff has assembled a lineup featuring 15 international features in its World Canvas section and 17 titles in the India Unveiled category, with additional special screenings and student films rounding out the program.

The Indian selection features several significant titles by renowned filmmakers, including Dibakar Banerjee’s “Tees,...

March 3 marks 31 years of Shyam Benegal’s endearing Mammo. This was one of the three films film critic Khalid Mohamed wrote for Benegal based on his own life and family, the other two being Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeida&lt/em (2001).

Rajit Kapoor, who played Khalid, speaks exclusively on the film.

What do you remember about Mammo?

It is one of the most sensitive stories ever made into a film. You know, I actually have an audio cassette somewhere of the film. And there was a time where we used to all listen to cassettes. I used to play it, the film, just to listen to it. It’s that kind of film. And as somebody said, I play the bookends of the film, because I come in the beginning and in the end.

What was it like working with the powerhouse actresses Surekha Sikri and Farida Jalal?

I got to work with two fantastic women,...

In this This Day That Year feature Subhash K Jha looks back at Chingari, starring Sushmita Se, which ompletes 17 Years On February 17th.

Kalpana Lajmi’s Chingari about oppression and justice boasted of an interesting central performance by Sushmita Sen. Reformist cinema seemed to be the order of the day. First, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s chic spin Rang De Basanti on the cult of political radicalism. Far away from home, Deepa Mehta has styled a lucid, lyrical drama on female rehabilitation called Water. Kalpana Lajmi styled a clarion call for socio-religious reform in the nexus between religion and sexual oppression in Chingari.

Based on a short story by composer-lyricist Bhupen Hazarika, Chingari brings Lajmi back to form in the ferociously flaming colours of black blue and dread. Set in a village, the film’s excellent though uneven cinematography (by Vishal Sinha) revolves around a group of prostitutes. Though the camaraderie...

In this fascinating interview we revist the one where star Hrithik Roshan talked of with Subhash K Jha about the making of Jodhaa-Akbar right before the release of the brilliant film in 2008.

What was it like shooting for Jodhaa-Akbar?

Jodhaa-Akbar has been tough. Luckily, people are looking forward to it. Some for the grandeur and ambience. Others so that they get an opportunity to throw some tomatoes on the screen. I’m happy everyone is motivated to come for the film.

You were quoted as saying you’d never do a historical again.

Not true. I might’ve said that in a specific context. But I’d definitely not do another one for a long time. It’s such a momentous opportunity. Doing it again would make it less sublime. When you think of period, you think of a grandeur that’s hard to replicate. I don’t think I...

Welcome to a multi-part series on the History Of Hindi Cinema. Through individual films and the larger oeuvres of some Hindi filmmakers, we’ll explore the highlights of 70 years of cinema, starting with 1950, just three years after India won its independence from British rule, and ending in the 2010s.

(Due...

India’s most prolific director Shyam Benegal released two very dissimilar, almost antithetical films. To no one’s surprise, both Zubeidaa and Hari Bhari, released within two weeks of each other, attracted sizeable attention from both the critics and the discerning public. Here, in this throwback interview, he talks about his two films.

Was it difficult to make Karisma Kapoor do the more complex scenes in Zubeidaa?

No, no. I personally believe that if an actor knows the character’s motivations, it’s her own intuitive interpretation of the character that makes the performance work. But the actor Must understand the character’s motivations. Sur mein hona chahiye, na? The actor must know why her character is placed in a situation, where she’s coming from and going.

You’ve already said Karisma Kapoor has given a performance on a par with Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Were you tempted...

In his 30-year career as an actor Amrish Puri did over 200 films. In his early years, most of the work he did was either quality-oriented work for the avant-garde directors Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani or outright kitsch, where he used his powerful voice and screen presence to accentuate the cinematic definitions of evil. Puri’s truly fertile phase as Bollywood’s most dependable character-actor, or actor of character, began in 1992. Here’s a checklist of his best films.

Nishant (1975):Playing the eldest brother in a family of zaalim(cruel) zamindars who abduct and rape a schoolteacher’s wife, Amrish Puri struck a note of immediate and everlasting terror in viewers’ hearts. Though the film had other terrific actors it was Puri who dominated the show in every way possible. The role had apparently been written for the Bengali actor Utpal Dutt, who excelled at playing obdurate disciplinarians. Puri, too,...

Pioneering director with a vital role in India’s ‘parallel cinema’ movement who used his films to explore difficult issues

The Indian film-maker Shyam Benegal, who has died aged 90, was a pillar of the “parallel cinema” movement, the informal grouping of independently minded and funded creatives whose work stood in stark, socially committed contrast to the song-and-dance escapism of Bollywood.

Responding to real events and centred on marginalised characters (often women), Benegal’s breakthrough films of the 1970s rejected the cosmetic, crowd-pleasing approach of the Hindi mainstream. Yet they found an appreciative audience both at home and abroad, helping to make household names of such performers as Shabana Azmi, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah.

The film-maker challenged mainstream Bollywood and pioneered a new wave cinema movement in the 1970s that tackled social issues

Shyam Benegal, a renowned Indian film-maker known for pioneering a new wave cinema movement that tackled social issues in the 1970s, has died aged 90 after suffering from chronic kidney disease.

Benegal passed away on Monday at Mumbai’s Wockhardt hospital and his cremation took place on Tuesday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, quoting his daughter Piya. “Benegal had been suffering from chronic kidney disease for several years but it had gotten very bad. That’s the reason for his death,” Piya said.

Many paid tribute to the film-maker on social media platform X. “Deeply saddened by the passing of Shyam Benegal, whose storytelling had a profound impact on Indian cinema. His works will continue to be admired by people from different walks of life,” India’s prime minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

Sunny Deol Starrer Border 2 Goes On Floor, Leaving Netizens Pumped Up For His Team Up With Varun Dhawan ( Photo Credit – YouTube; Instagram )

After the tremendous success of Gadar 2 last year, another one of Sunny Deol’s cult classics is coming soon with a sequel. We are talking about Border’s sequel, Border 2. T-Series gave the fans an early Christmas present by revealing the film’s release date and cast. Deol was a driving force in the Og movie; hence, he will be there to lead the cast, which also stars Varun Dhawan. Scroll below to know the audience’s reactions.

For the unversed, Border was released in 1997, and the epic war drama was produced and directed by the legendary Jp Dutta. It is set during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and is based on the Battle of Longewala. The war drama had an ensemble cast comprising Sunny Deol,...

When Shyam Benegal Convinced Manoj Bajpayee To Play A Prince In Zubeidaa (Photo Credit – Instagram)

Legendary director and screenwriter Shyam Benegal died at 90 on Monday (December 23). The pioneer behind movies acclaimed movies like Manthan, Ankur, Mandi, Mujib, and other notable works, his death has marked a significant loss for Indian cinema. Those who had associated with Benegal spoke highly of his unique vision. One of them was actor Manoj Bajpayee, who worked with the director in the 2001 film Zubeidaa. In a throwback interaction, Bajpayee revealed how the filmmaker had convinced him to play a royal prince in the movie even though he was skeptical before taking the role.

What Did Manoj Bajpayee Reveal About Shyam Benegal?

Manoj Bajpayee revealed to Pti that he met Shyam Benegal a few years after the success of his film Satya wherein he had played the iconic role of gangster Bhiku Mhatre. The director of Satya,...

Picking the best Shyam Benegal movies is an embarrassment of riches. His body of work is unprecedented for Indian cinema. My delightful dilemma was not about which ones to choose but about the ones to abandon. He interrupted Hindi film’s archetypal romance, drama, and comedy strips. Shyam Babu (as he is fondly referred to) stubbornly defied the saleable account with social pragmatism. He also spearheaded the fractures that were commencing to surface in the society due to the chaotic socio-political environment of a young nation in 1974, the year he debuted. He triggered and became the colonizer of parallel cinema in India with his path-breaking debut feature, Ankur (1974). Mr. Benegal has won seven National Awards for Best Feature Film in Hindi throughout his career!

Self-admittedly, Shyam Benegal’s style of filmmaking is heavily inspired by the works of Satyajit Ray. And if you observe closely, you could also find impressionable,...

Pioneering Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal died Monday in Mumbai following a chronic kidney disease. He was 90.

His daughter Pia Benegal confirmed the news to India Today. He had recently celebrated his 90th birthday with friends, family and the likes of Shashi Kapoor’s son Kunal Kapoor, according to the local outlet.

Benegal was a pioneering film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker, widely regarded as one of the best since the 1970s.

He started his career working as a copywriter for a Mumbai advertising agency while simultaneously making documentaries. He made his first, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep), in 1962.

Benegal rose to fame with a move into feature films in the early 1970s. His first, Ankur (The Seedling), starred Anant Nag and Shabana Azmi and was a critical and commercial success. Ankur was followed by New Indian Cinema hits including Nishant Manthan and Bhumika. His other credits of many down the years included Trikal,...

Shyam Benegal, a pivotal figure in Indian cinema known for his incisive and socially conscious storytelling, died on Monday in Mumbai following a chronic kidney ailment, his daughter confirmed to India Today. He was 90.

His career, spanning over five decades, left an indelible mark on the film industry, blending art with activism and bridging the gap between mainstream and parallel cinema. He was instrumental in shaping India’s New Wave cinema movement, also known as Parallel Cinema, in the 1970s.

Benegal began his career in advertising before transitioning to filmmaking, a move that would redefine Indian storytelling. His debut fiction feature, “Ankur” (1974), became a cornerstone of Indian cinema, earning critical acclaim for its unflinching portrayal of social hierarchies and gender dynamics. The film, which played at the Berlinale, won multiple Indian National Film Awards and launched the career of actor Shabana Azmi.

Over the years, Benegal’s body of work...

Shabana Azmi’s illustrious career began with her Christopher Columbus Shyam Benegal’s Ankur which kickstarted her romance with immortality.

Now when Benegal turns 90, Shabana turns emotional as she says, “I wish him a very long and healthy life. He changed the face of Hindi cinema and I am so fortunate to have started my career with him. If not for him, my career would have taken a completely different trajectory if I had not started with Ankur.

She fondly sees Shyam Babu as much more than a filmmaker. “He is my mentor and guru, albeit a reluctant one. But above all the other equations that I share with him, I consider him a dear dear friend. I don’t have enough words to describe what he means to me. I value the fact that he takes the trouble to call me when he has watched a performance of mine,...

In a move to bolster film preservation across borders, India’s Film Heritage Foundation (Fhf) is teaming with French diplomatic missions in India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives on a two-year project dubbed Fisch (France-India-Sri Lanka Cine Heritage).

Supported by the French Embassy and the French Institute in India, alongside the French Embassy in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the project spans over two years with a focus on training, film restoration, preservation and outreach.

The partnership has kicked off with a film preservation and restoration workshop, which continues till Nov. 14 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, southern India. The workshop, organized with the International Federation of Film Archives (Fiaf), is hosting 67 participants for intensive training in film restoration and preservation techniques. The initiative features faculty from prestigious French institutions including Cinémathèque de Toulouse, Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé and Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (Ina).

Among the project’s first initiatives is the restoration...

The 68th BFI London Film Festival 2024 proudly presents Manthan (The Churning), a potent and political landmark in Indian independent filmmaking directed by the visionary Shyam Benegal. Released in 1976, this groundbreaking film is not only a testament to the power of cinema but also an extraordinary exploration of social change, class, and caste inequalities in rural Gujarat.

A Collective Effort of 500,000 Farmers

What sets Manthan apart is its unique funding story—crafted with the contributions of 500,000 farmers. This makes it the film with the largest count of individual investors, showcasing a remarkable collaboration driven by a common purpose: the ‘White Revolution’ in India. The film’s narrative is based on the true story of the world’s largest dairy development programme, reflecting the struggles and aspirations of countless rural families.

Also, Read – The 10 Best Shyam Benegal Movies

A Story of Change

The plot follows a city veterinarian who arrives in a struggling village,...

On October 2nd, we celebrate Gandhi Jayanti, marking the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, a global symbol of peace, non-violence, and justice. Born in 1869, Gandhi’s philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha (truth and resistance) transformed India’s struggle for independence into a moral revolution. His unwavering commitment to civil disobedience inspired global movements for human rights, from Martin Luther King Jr. in America to Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Gandhi’s ideology transcended political boundaries, leaving a lasting imprint on the world—and even the film industry. Filmmakers across continents have sought to capture his life and ideals on screen, creating enduring works that not only tell the story of Gandhi but also remind audiences of the power of truth, empathy, and resistance in the face of injustice. Through cinema, Gandhi’s legacy continues to inspire generations, proving that his teachings remain as relevant today as ever. To honor his memory,...

Veteran actor Mithun Chakraborty has been named the recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke award, India’s highest honor in cinema.

The announcement was made by Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Railways and Electronics and Information Technology.

The award is given for lifetime contribution to Indian cinema and is named after Phalke, director of “Raja Harischandra” (1913), India’s first full-length feature, who is considered the father of Indian cinema.

Chakraborty, 74, has appeared in over 350 films across multiple Indian languages during his nearly five-decade career. He rose to prominence with his debut in “Mrigayaa” (1976), which earned him his first Indian National Film Award for Best Actor. The actor gained widespread recognition for his role in “Disco Dancer” (1982), a film that also found success beyond Indian shores across Asia, the erstwhile Soviet Union, eastern Europe, the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

Throughout his career, Chakraborty has collected three acting...