India

Widely considered to be the crown jewel of Kashmir, Dal Lake is a sprawling aquatic community where erupting political violence often distracts from the natural beauty. Gulzar, a young, working-class boatman, plans to skip town with his best friend in search of a better life, but a weeklong military curfew derails their departure. Forced to wait it out, Gulzar takes a job assisting a pretty scientist named Asifa. As they navigate the floating landscape, collecting water samples for an environmental study, an unlikely relationship blossoms between the two. When Asifa’s research reveals harmful pollutants, Gulzar realizes that the ecology of the lake and an entire way of life face an alarming threat, and everything in his own life begins to take on a new hue.Read More »

Synopsis
This bittersweet story is one of the last two films directed by acclaimed Bengali Satyajit Ray (1921-1992). In the story, Ananda Majumdar (Maradan Bannerjee) is the very moral and upright 70 year old patriarch of a family, with four grown sons. His father and one of his sons live at home with him, and his other three sons live elsewhere. When he collapses during a banquet being given in his honor, the sons and their families gather at his bedside at home. There, while their father lies for the most part comatose, the boys reveal to each other exactly what they’ve been up to without the sugar coating they’ve been giving their father. The oldest boy has been embezzling from the company he runs, another one is losing money for fun at the racetrack, and yet another has given up a decent job in order to become an actor.Read More »

A splashy Bollywood musical for ’60s pop culture fanatics, Jewel Thief updates the old Prince and the Pauper identity switch to a Technicolor universe comprised of the filmmaker’s fondest bits from James Bond, The Pink Panther, and European comic strips, peppered with the usual spirited musical numbers. The result is an irresistible confection, just the kind of thing to throw on at a party to keep the guests’ eyes occupied.Read More »

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Rangeela (1995) is a Hindi-language movie, a product of the Bollywood film industry. It was directed by Ram Gopal Varma, and starred Aamir Khan, Urmila Matondkar, and Jackie Shroff.

Rangeela was music director A. R. Rahman’s first Hindi movie with an original score. The film features famous playback singer Asha Bhosle, who made something of a comeback singing Rahman’s extremely popular music.Read More »

A special investigator discovers a case of serial killings is not what it seems to be, and leading down this path is only going to end in a war between everyone involved.Read More »

In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, moths are whispering something to us. In the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on this secret universe. Together, they are on an expedition to decode these nocturnal creatures in a remote ecological “hot spot” on the border of India and Bhutan. The result is a deeply immersive film that transports audiences to a rarely-seen place and urges us all to look more closely at the hidden interconnections of the natural world.Read More »

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“It’s never going to be easy for people like us,” squirms Vicky Duggal (Anil George), Mumbai’s foremost specialist in smut cinema. The degenerate auteur lectures his meek younger brother, Sonu (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), about the realities of their trade, specifically the stranglehold wielded by low-level distribution companies in bed with organized crime syndicates. This “woe is me” attitude, of it being hard out there for a pimp, remains prominent throughout Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely, an anti-climactic and emotionally trite 1980s-set tragedy following the rise and fall of the Duggal brothers within the local softcore industry.Read More »

A generational curse, comes true in a senseless act of injustice to Ponni and her family. Driven to seek vengeance by Sangaiya, with whom she shares a bitter past.Read More »

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Although dedicated to Bimal Roy, known for his reformist socials, this is a psychodrama. Throughout her life Uma (Tagore), the daughter of Mohan Sharma (Bose), is blamed for her mother dying while giving birth to her. The guilt-laden Uma is contrasted with the flippant, upper-class Anita (Shashikala). Other characters include Arun (Verma), Anita’s boyfriend who returns from abroad, and his idealist friend Ashok (Dharmendra), a writer who loves Uma and eventually rescues her after writing a novel based on his imagination of her life. Classic songs composed and performed by Hemanta Mukherjee include the well-picturised Ya dil ki suno, and Lata Mangeshkar’s Dheere dheere machal.Read More »