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Aparna Sen’s contribution to cinema as an actor and a director is monumental. From a playful young bride in Satyajit Ray’s Bengali anthology film, Teen Kanya (her debut), to a strong, independent working woman determined to teach the boarders of a boys’ hostel a lesson in Dinen Gupta’s comedy romance film, Basanta Bilap, Sen had garnered accolades as an actor by the time she began her directorial journey with 36 Chowringhee Lane.

At present, especially with the Hema Committee Report released last year, the discrimination and exploitation women are subjected to in the (pan) Indian film industries have become common knowledge. From stories of casting couches to the rampant discrimination faced by women cinematographers and filmmakers, there is no denying that the film industry is a gendered space. Women have always been assigned a few conventional roles in the industry, and Aparna Sen is one of the few...

As we have mentioned many times before, the documentary is currently experiencing one of its golden periods, with the fact that reality goes beyond any script becoming quite obvious throughout the plethora of entries we have been seeing during that last few years. Furthermore, as a number of courageous filmmakers shed light to issues that are dangerous to depict (to say the least) or even hard to watch, the quality of the category continues to improve. Add to that the biographical ones, the ones that present real but relatively unknown sides of each country’s society and you have the majority of reasons for what we mentioned in the beginning.

Without further ado, here are the 15 Best Asian Documentaries of 2024, in reverse order. Some may have premiered in 2023, but since they mostly circulated in 2024, we decided to include them.

15. Parama: A Journey With Aparna Sen Aparna Sen © Mayaleela Films

“When actors become mainstream stars,...

India's “renaissance woman” Aparna Sen – actress, director, producer, fighter for women's right, diversity and ethnic & religious minorities – whose career in the film business spans over six decades, was presented with the Red Lotus Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 in Vienna. The filmmaker was unfortunately not able to fly over to recieve it, and the award was presented to the winner through the German film critic and editor of the film magazine Shomingeki, Rüdiger Tomczak.

Parama: A Journey With Aparna Sen screened at Red Lotus Asian Film Festival Vienna

Only a few months ago, Sumah Ghosh's documentary “Parama: A Journey With Aparna Sen” about the Indian helmer celebrated its world premiere in the Cinema Regained strand of IFFR, and it was only logical to include it in the repertoire of Red Lotus Asian Film Festival. It is a film that gives a deep insight into the life and work of one of the...