Lens on India at London film fest
The 68th London Film Festival, which is on till October 20, is showcasing more than 150 films, a good number of which are Indian and South Asian. According to Ben Roberts, chief executive of the British Film Institute (BFI), “In an age when we have everything, everywhere all at once, it is still in these festivals where films come to life with filmmakers and audiences in the same forum.”
In 1958, during the second edition of the BFI London Film Festival, Yasujiro Ozu’s ‘Tokyo Story’ received the first Sutherland Award. The following year, Satyajit Ray took the trophy for ‘The World of Apu’. Since then, Indian and South Asian filmmakers have longed for their films to be showcased here. Most of the films in this year’s package of South Asian films have been produced in the US, Canada, the UK, Belgium, France and Germany. Many of these filmmakers were born and raised in the West, but the content of their films is earthy, rooted in the ethos, politics and culture of India.
British-born filmmaker Sandhya Suri has created a buzz with ‘Santosh’, a UK-French-German collaboration. In this taut thriller, set in North India, a housewife-turned-cop gets sucked into a high-profile case that has polarised the local community. The recently widowed Santosh is considered a liability in a community where casteism and misogyny are an inextricable part of life. Her reluctant inheritance of her husband’s job as police constable is problematised by her having to deal with the death of a murdered teenager. Sandhya Suri’s deft thriller is a complex character study of a female cop, whose moral conflict lays bare the oppression perpetuated in the name of caste.
“A very good selection, three of them — ‘Santosh’, ‘Sister Midnight’ by Karan Kandhari and ‘All We Imagine as Light’ by Payal Kapadia — have been to Cannes,” says Suman Bhuchar of ‘Asian Culture Vulture’.
Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning drama ‘All We Imagine As Light’ is a France-India-Netherlands-Luxembourg collaborative effort. The lives of Prabha, Anu and Parvaty, employees at a hospital in Mumbai, intersect in this haunting drama that sees the city play a central role.
The most entertaining film of the package is Roshan Sethi’s warm-hearted ‘A Nice Indian Boy’ (USA-Canada). Naveen meets Jay and a whirlwind romance leads to an engagement. Comic situations arise when Naveen tries to introduce Jay to his family. Putting a fresh queer and Indian spin on the tropes of the rom-com, it is a charming, celebration of love and acceptance.
In Reema Kagti’s ‘Superboys of Malegaon’ (India), a ragtag crew of filmmakers with no resources ends up creating a cult phenomenon. Malegaon is only six hours from Mumbai. For Nasir Shaikh, a Malegaon resident who eats, sleeps and dreams movies, Bollywood is a distant yet alluring dream. Kagti chronicles the heart-warming true story of Shaikh as he crowdsources a wave of ingenious spoof films that become a national phenomenon.
‘Sister Midnight’ (UK) by Karan Kandhari is a genre-bending comedy about a frustrated and misanthropic newlywed Uma, who discovers certain feral impulses that land her in unlikely situations.
Among the highlights of the 12-day festival is Shyam Benegal’s 1976 classic ‘Manthan’. His wife Nira Benegal will be the special guest at the screening.
Prof Rajinder Dudrah of Birmingham City University sums it up: “The London fest always brings a diverse range of films where promises of exciting stories make us sit up, watch and think. In the current global context where strife appears to be a constant, we need even more to see and hear from each other in pressing ways.”
— The writer is a film historian
