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Independent
“From Shiraz to Seoul : An Iranian teenager’s journey through K-Pop in Ebrahim Amini’s K-Poper” © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI) [lalitmax2022@gmail.com]
In an era where cultural borders are increasingly porous and global pop culture travels effortlessly from one corner of the world to another, K-Poper, the début directorial venture of Iranian filmmaker Ebrahim Amini, arrives as a poignant and timely story. Set against th...
The Cannes Cinema Meetings-Les Rencontres Cinematographiques de Cannes is celebrating the 38 edition and taking place 17-23.11 in Cannes. While the organizers are describing the film festival as not beeing international, the selection it surely is. Just before the movies releases in France the films are screened in the 6 movie theaters of Cannes and Cannes La Bocca, giving cinephiles a rare chance of an avant premiere and even meeting the cast, directors or screenwriters of the films. In colla...
Bahadur 120, Songs launch: Heart-warming at the second coldest place on earth
They chose Royal Opera House, near Charni Road Railway Station, South in Mumbai. Sensibly, a time of 7.30 pm was indicated. If things went well, proceedings would be over by 9 pm, and the guests travelling by train or road, would have beaten the peak-hour rush. A potpourri of snacks and beverages was laid out in the compound of the once popular cinema location, owned by a royal family, and retaining its regal splend...
Alfonso Cuarón’s sun-drenched odyssey of youth, desire, and disillusionment still feels urgent more than two decades later © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI)
Freedom, flesh, and the road: The enduring power of the Mexican film ‘‘Y Tu Mamá También’’ (2001) directed by Alfonso Cuarón.
“Freedom, if pursued without awareness, can become just another illusion.”
A film ...
It Was Just an Accident (2025) is an Iranian-made film made without authorization from the Iranian government. The drama was directed, written, and co-produced by Jafar Panahi. Jafar is a central part of Iranian new wave cinema with films such as The White Balloon (1995), The Circle (2000), and Crimson Gold (2003); all three films reflect the movement's themes of social critique, formal restraint, and realism. The cas...
Ching’s Secret Attack, now in a new, 9 minute, video pack
Few people know the recipé of this concoction. Those who know are keeping it a secret. But they have managed to sell millions/billions of sachets of this ‘Desi Chinese’ product, without spilling the beans. Ching, a variation of Qing, refers to the Manchu dynasty in China, which ruled during 1644–1912, and was the last imperial dynasty that ruled the country. In Mandarin Chinese, thousands of words have va...
By Liza Foreman
In Bleeding Blue Bird, Paris-based director Lev Prudkin opens a trapdoor beneath the stage and plunges us into the metaphysical. Making its world premiere in New York on October 18, the film introduces a surreal fever dream of theatrical obsession, identity fracture, and the dangerous blurring of art and life in this UK-Russia-Ukraine co-production, shot on location in Kyiv before the war. The film is currently seeking distribution.
Starring Arthur Darvill (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) as a tormented theatre director and Hannah Arterton (Walking on Sunshine, The Peripheral) as a mythic Queen of Night, the film is anything but a conventional drama. Set against the haunting backdrop of a production of The Blue Bird, Prudkin’s film becomes a shape‑shifting spectacle—one where the performance begins to leak into the performers’ very lives.
Bleeding Blue Bird is not an adaptation of Maeterlinck but a film about what happens when art escapes the stage and invades life.
The cry of the city: poverty, power, and the monkeys of Lutyens' New Delhi in ‘‘Eeb Allay Ooo’’ directed by Prateek Vats © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI)
Director Prateek Vats’ ‘‘Eeb Allay Ooo’’ (2019) is one of the most strikingly original Indian films of recent years — a daring blend of absurdist satire, social realism, and political commentary. It takes an idea so improbable that ...
Poster for It Was Just An Accident
It Was Just an Accident (2025) is an Iranian-made film made without authorization from the Iranian government. The drama was directed, written, and co-produced by Jafar Panahi. Jafar is a central part of Iranian new wave cinema with films such as The White Balloon (1995), The Circle (2000), and Crimson Gold (2003); all three films reflect the movement's themes of social critique,...
FICCI FRAMES 2025, 05: Padma Shri Akshay Kumar and Ayushmann Khurrana, BA
FICCI FRAMES the annual Media and Entertainment Convention event, was held over two days, October 07 and 08, at the Fairmont Hotel, near CSMI Airport, Sahar, Mumbai. RISE: Redefining Innovation, Sustainability, and Excellence was the theme for the convention this year. The inauguration of the event, on the morning of October 07, was graced by India’s Information and Broadcasting Secretary in the Union Govern...
Kantara, A Legend, Chapter 1: All’s well that ends in a Well
How many times can you scream out long war-cries in a film that is 168 minutes long? Theoretically, maybe around 2,520 times. Kantara, A Legend, Chapter 1 does not clock anywhere near that number, hovering, most probably, around a mere 252 times. That shows consideration and sympathy for your tympanic membranes, aka ear-drums. In between, it lets out a barrage of voice overs, dubbed dialogue (I saw the Hindustani version of th...
Sunny Sanskari ki Tulsi kumari, Overview: Funny Kalamkari ki Bhari shikari
Okay, so you need to look up the word ‘kalamkari’. No, you don’t. I will do the needful. ‘Kalamkari’ is a form of printing designs on cloth. And if you tell me you don’t know what shikari and funny mean, it is not funny! So, who or what is funny? Sunny (proper noun) is. And where is the ‘kalamkari’? All over the film, in terms of criss-cross lines and a veritable feast of...
Tu Meri Poori Kahani, Overview: Future to the Back
Presenter and co-writer Mahesh Bhatt, director Suhrita Das and music director Anu Malik make an attempt to espouse the cause of films of yore, that had songs, most of them playback in lip sync, and many of them owed their success to these songs. This pattern of film-making, in vogue from 1935, got phased out in the late 90s, with the death of gramophone records, cassette tapes and VHS videotapes, and the emergence of music videos, telecast fr...
Filipino cineaste Mike De Leon’s Kisapmata (1981) is a family tragedy as well as a national allegory about patriarchy, possession, and death © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI)
There are a very few films in Southeast Asian cinema that have left as haunting and unforgettable an impression as Kisapmata (1981), the seminal Filipino masterpiece directed by Mike De Leon. The film is often labeled as horror, but such a label fails to grasp its true textur...
Kantara, Chapter 1, press meet: A Legend at Land’s End
A young man worked in Andheri West, Mumbai as an office boy, and, later, as a driver, in 2008. More recently, he started making films, in his home state, Karnataka. He spent 250 days of the last 3 years shooting a film, which is a prequel to a blockbuster he made, released in 2022. A writer, director and actor, he camped in a place called Kundapur, near Mangalore, Karnataka, with his wife, the costume designer, and their 10-month ol...
Cinema as the seventh art, at its most inspired, often turns the camera back upon itself, or upon its cousins in the performing arts, to explore how illusion and reality collide. From Mrinal Sen’s classic ‘‘Akaler Sandhane’’ (1980) to Shyam Benegal’s ‘‘Bhumika’’ (1977), films have long probed the fragile borderlines between life onstage and life offstage. In Malayalam cinema, there are a very few works that embody thi...
Homebound, Review: A treasure found
Neeraj Ghaywan took ten years to make his second feature, after the universally acclaimed Masaan. Much was expected from this tremendously gifted writer-director. What will he come-up with, after making his debut with a minor classic? Will he be able to trump Masaan? The answer is yes. He’s done it.
Homebound is at least on par, if not better, than Masaan. It is not entirely an Indian effort, although Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions is the ban...
Jolly LL.B., Overview: Bikaner to Boston, in racing cars, and two advocates riding camels
Land acquisition, for building roads, bridges, residential and commercial buildings, factories and airports, are burning issues that have been making headlines in developing India for several decades now. These acquisitions are either by the government in power, or by companies that are owned by billionaires. In many cases, the government acquires the land, at a nominal price, only to hand it ove...
NEW RELEASE on YouTube
CAPTAIN AMERICA - the musicfilm - A rare gem unearthed!
– on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WQZqWRZF31s
TREVOR TANNER — legendary British guitar lord and former frontman of chart-topping band The Bolshoi — performs “Captain America” live in Granby, CT.
No mixing boards. No reverbs. No tricks. Just Trevor. Raw, pure, and near-studio quality.
More than a song, Captain America stands tall as a defender of democracy, and this performance proves wh...
‘‘A cash cow amidst cultural crossroads in Rajasthan’s Thar desert’’ : Migration and selfhood in French documentary filmmaker Fabienne Le Houérou’s film : ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI)
French anthropologist, historian and documentary filmmaker Fabienne Le Houérou’s latest work, ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’, stands at a cu...
Sunny Sanskari ki Tulsi kumari, Trailer launch: Two breakups, two weddings, and Exs v/s Exs
They were all there, but for two: Writer-director Shashank Khaitan, actors Varun Dhawan, Jahnvi Kapoor, Rohit Saraf, Manish Paul, and producer Apoorva Mehta. The two, who were missed, were producer Karan Johar and actress Sanya Malhotra. The former’s absence was attributed to his decision not to attend events related to his films, because he feels that when he is present, all attention is focusse...
Satyajit Ray’s Mahapurush (1965), a sharp social satire adapted from Bengali writer Rajshekhar Basu’s short story Birinchibaba, remains one of the most incisive explorations of religious imposters in Indian cinema. Coming five years after Devi (1960), where Ray offered a chilling depiction of blind faith and its tragic consequences, Mahapurush takes a lighter, comedic route to unveil the manipulations of a fake holy man. With wit, intelligence, and a profound under...
Mirai, Review: Rod of the Rings v/s Sword of the Rings
If this film makes good money, the makers can rue over the fact that the plot took off when the villain was trying to get possession of the seventh book of scriptures, out of nine, which would impart magic and, ultimately, godliness and immortality, and ended with his attempt at acquiring the ninth and last one. Well, they could have made nine films instead of one, and earned nine times over. Mirai is another instalment in what is now an ...
‘‘Sandesham’’ (1991): is a classic political satire rooted in Kerala’s middle-class life © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI)
Cinema has always been a powerful medium to hold a mirror to society. Some films entertain, some inspire, and a rare few manage to distill the complexities of life into satire so sharp that it continues to remain relevant decades after its release. Malayalam language film‘‘Sandesham’&r...
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