CelebsPick: 5 Indian independent films of 2019 that you must watch!

Five film professionals pick a recent independent film worth your time

Aunties, cool
Vinay Pathak, actor

“Aunty Sudha Aunty Radha by Tanuja Chandra has a sequence where on Holi the younger aunt decides to raise her infirm body and starts to dance on the beats of the dhol…my eyes welled up seeing the absolute sparkle of joy in her eyes. The film leaves you with a broad smile on your face and a ray of hope in your heart.Life is beautiful and the aunts teach you that , without saying it out loud. ”

Home alone
Manav Kaul, actor

“Achal Mishra’s Gamak Ghar is in Maithili and seems to be a very unusual one where the protagonist, as the name suggests, is this ancestral house. It is a curious mix of reality and fiction. The story unfolds in three time periods with memories and present swapping places.”

Point of view
Rahul Desai, film critic

“My recommendation is a film called Rakkhosh, directed by Abhijit Kokate, which has been streaming on Netflix. Rakkhosh goes where very few Indian feature films have gone before – in that it has been shot entirely from the first-person POV of a schizophrenic patient. The effect is intriguing and harnesses the ‘eye’ of the audience in the purest and most unnerving way possible.”

Small town talk
Vivaan Shah, actor

“Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi made by Seema Pahwa, is one of the most gentle and trenchant observations on small town family life. It is also one of the most unique examinations of death from a logistical point of view. There are evocations of the landscape of Harishankar Parsai and Bhisham Sahani, who’s works Seema Pahwa has expertly staged in the past, but this film is a true original and has a voice and vernacular all its own, which comes very much from the writer-director’s own life and experiences.”

To forgive, divine
Mayank Shekhar, film critic

“Rubaru Roshni, filmed by (Aamir Khan’s chat show) Satyamev Jayate’s co-director, Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal – is a humanistic documentary feature, comprising three crisp short stories on forgiveness (the only antidote we have to frightening propaganda, and hate-crimes). The movie inevitably moves you to tears.”

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From HT Brunch, November 17, 2019

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