Tusshar Sasi

How do you hit the establishment in the gut without even brushing against its hair? Ask Jafar Panahi and he might have the answer. His filmmaking legacy and long-standing battle with the Iranian state show that he is one of the bravest filmmakers alive. His Palm d’Or–winning film It Was Just An Accident is a furious work, yet laced with sardonic commentary on a system that is corrupt, greedy, immoral and inhumane.

If done well, conversational films carry an undeniable charm. The context and dialogue must hold our attention, and the actors must know how to talk. It all sounds easy, although the absence of location changes can quickly make any film monotonous. In Prasanth Vijay’s Ithiri Neram, we meet podcast host Anish (Roshan Mathew), who reconnects with his former girlfriend Anjana (Zarin Shihab). Before we realise it, a brief encounter turns into an unforgettable night for the two.

In Indian society, we have grown up listening to theories that hail women for their strength. If biology makes men physically stronger, what’s the other kind of strength they are referring to? And when do we stop comparing them to Goddess Durga to let them be? In Rahul Ravindran’s Telugu-language film The Girlfriend, we meet a woman who stands as an antithesis to the prototypical heroine of popular Telugu blockbusters.

It’s often said that if men were the ones to menstruate or give birth, the rules of the world would have been entirely different. Much has been written about women’s strength and multitasking abilities. Hindi cinema itself coined the famous line, “Woh stree hai, woh kuch bhi kar sakti hai.” But can we step aside from these mock-consolations for a moment and ask why women need such reaffirmations in the first place? Director Suparn S. Varma’s Haq is a harrowing tale of a woman who reaches the highest court of the nation seeking what is rightfully hers as a wife, a mother, and a woman.

When a film about paranormal activity in real, lived-in spaces emerges, the first thing that strikes us is questions. The tried-and-tested way to dodge them is by throwing religion or folklore into the mix. Rahul Sadasivan’s Dies Irae stands out as a rare horror film that largely resists that shortcut. It raises questions, answers some, leaves a few to the imagination, and saves others for possible sequels.

Senna Hegde’s Avihitham opens with the tagline “Made in Kanhangad.” Where is Kanhangad? And what makes anything made there special, let alone a film? For those who discovered Malayalam cinema during the lockdown, the state might seem like a uniform patchwork of modern ideas and shared sensibilities. Avihitham, which examines adultery, is steeped in its local dialect, landscape, and cultural texture. It can very much amuse someone from Kerala’s Kottayam or Kollam despite never being a utopia. What remains universal here, though, is the social morality that thrives on exposing a “fallen woman,” teaching her a lesson, and eventually discarding her.

Indian folklore is full of mythical beings. Some shapeshift, some have terrifying fangs, some are into blood-sucking, and almost all of them fly. In some mythology-linked stories, these beings that once appeared in novels and comics are now popular again as superheroes, following in the footsteps of their Western counterparts. In Aditya Sarpotdar’s Thamma, the creature community in focus is of the vetaals who reside deep within the jungles. They have a large army of both good and evil individuals who are sworn to either protect or destroy the human race.

In recent years, Malayalam cinema has produced several police stories that look beyond their heroic surface. From the era of Suresh Gopi’s Bharath Chandran IPS, the template has shifted to more grounded portrayals, with filmmakers exploring the brutal, vulnerable, and helpless sides of police officers. Ratheena’s Paathirathri belongs to this newer breed, focusing equally on the personal lives of its cops. Set in Anakkara, a village in Kerala’s Idukki district, the film revolves around an unforeseen event that takes place at midnight.