Mandakini Goswami
2021
Bandit Queen
Shekhar Kapur
Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey
Born a lower-caste girl in rural India's patriarchal society, "married" at 11, repeatedly raped and brutalized, Phooland Devi finds freedom only as an avenging warrior, the eponymous Bandit Queen. Devi becomes a kind a bloody Robin Hood; this extraordinary biographical film offers both a vivid portrait of a driven woman and a savage critique of the society that made her.
Bandit Queen
Karvaan
Pankaj Butalia
Subrat Dutta, Kitu Gidwani
Young filmmaker Pankaj Butalia directs this sweeping film about ill-fated love set against the epic canvas of India's partition into Hindu Indian and Muslim Pakistan. The film opens with Lajma, a beautiful school teacher with greying hair, leaving Pakistan for her childhood home in India. There she discovers that the home is in ruin, her aging aunt is half senile, and her cousin Gautam is bitter and defeated. Flashback to 1947 when India splits in two -- the police force a proud old Muslim man, along with his grieving daughter-in-law, to take in a couple of impoverished Hindus, Chand and Bhagwati, into their large home. Later, Chand's mute sister Lajjo arrives with her young daughter Lajma in tow. Suffering from some unnamed past trauma, Lajjo is eventually shipped off to an asylum, leaving Lajma with her uncle. Later still, Lajma, Chand's son Gautam and their neighbor's son Jamal all live and play with each other in Chand's vast complex.
Shadows in the Dark
