Sumeet Kaur

MUBI • 28th July 2020

Cinema as a Personal Search for Truth: An Interview with Arun Karthick

Indian filmmaker Arun Karthick’s filmography revels in the realm of the senses with its languid, meditative focus on landscapes (both natural and urban), still life, silence, and quotidian existence. His films don’t seem to search for the extraordinary within the ordinary; for him, beauty—and terror—exists in the ordinary itself.

These themes are touched upon in his first short film, The Backwaters (2010), in which a boatman recalls the story of a young girl to his passenger in a wordless flash

The Ideas Lab • 4th May 2018

Omertà Review: Portrait Of A Dangerous Mind In A Jarring Film

It should be established at the onset that this review will look at the film in its entirety since it is based on the life of a man whose (mis)achievements are well-known. This review is, therefore, technically spoiler-free.

In one of the early scenes of Hansal Mehta’s Omertà, Omar Sheikh, under the guise of Rohit Verma roams the streets of Paharganj, where he befriends four foreign tourists and later abducts them because of the atrocities their respective governments committed on his “Muslim b

The Ideas Lab • 13th April 2018

Sebastiano Riso: The Italian Filmmaker On His Desire To Tell Personal Stories

Acclaimed Italian filmmaker Sebastiano Riso has made several short films, music videos, and two feature films. His first feature film, 2014’s Darker than Midnight, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and the second, 2017’s A Family, opened at last year’s Venice International Film Festival. The former portrayed the rise of the drag queen Fuxia, and the latter explored the underbelly of surrogacy and adoption policies that homosexual couples in Italy have to traverse. Following the wide relea

The Ideas Lab • 29th March 2018

Avijit Dutt: The Film And Theatre Veteran On The Inseparability Of Art & Politics

Actor, filmmaker, theatre director, and communications consultant, Avijit Dutt, dons many hats. With such films as The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, No One Killed Jessica, and Jolly LLB to his credit as an actor, the Delhi-based gent maintains a steady passion for theatre, where he has played Ghalib, Banquo, and Rabindranath Tagore. In essaying a range of characters from the plays of Bertolt Brecht and Dario Fo, he uses his craft to voice social and political concerns. As he continues to en

Umbra • 22nd March 2018

From the Lakeside: Julia Staniszewska's 'Three Conversations on Life'|| by Sumeet Kaur

From the Lakeside: Julia Staniszewska's 'Three Conversations on Life'

Julia is an atheist, while her mother a devout Catholic doctor. Julia undergoes IVF treatment, but the decision is met with strong disapproval from her mother, who condemns the ‘unnatural’ nature of the scientific intervention in divinely ordained procreation even after Julia gives birth to twin sons. The film is divided in three chapters (the three conversations) and each conversation corresponds to the year in which it was

The Ideas Lab • 25th January 2018

Padmaavat Review: Much Ado About Nothing

Based on the fictional poem by Malik Muhammad Jayasi, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s much-hyped Padmaavat begins after the Khilji dynasty has gained a strong foothold in Delhi. The hedonistic Sultan is deposed by his nephew and son-in-law, Alauddin (Ranveer Singh), who claims a birthright to everything that is ‘nayaab’ (precious). While he sets out to expand his Sultanate, Maharawal Ratan Singh of Chittor (Shahid Kapoor), marries Padmavati (Deepika Padukone) who is the daughter of the Singhal king. Wor

The Ideas Lab • 10th January 2018

Kriti Film Club: “We Are A Development Support Group, Not A Project”

At a time when a majority of cultural content is generated keeping a directed lens towards entertainment and financial profit, Delhi based Kriti Film Club forgoes it all to ensure social development. The brainchild of 19-year old Kriti Team, a Non-Profit Organisation, the Film Club focuses on documentary cinema and social films to fuel the discussion around some of the most pressing concerns of our time, from casteism to climate change. We talk to Aanchal Kapur (Founder) about what goes into run

Umbra • 1st December 2017

American Gods Review

A review of the TV series based on the novel of the same name by Neil Gaiman.

The Ideas Lab • 27th November 2017

Pankaj Johar: There Couldn’t Be A Better Time For Documentary Filmmaking

Pankaj Johar’s documentaries look at social issues through intensely personal experiences. Ask him about his inspiration in life, and pat comes the response, “My father,” who is the subject of his first documentary, Standing Still. His second documentary, Cecilia, premiered at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2015, and has since won the Best Documentary award at the Stuttgart Indian Film Festival (2016) and travelled from Norway to Argentina. Exploring the director’

Deccan Chronicle • 12th May 2017

King Arthur - Legend of the Sword movie review: A caper disguised as an epic fantasy

King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword is a quintessential Guy Ritchie affair, wherein style overwhelms the substance. The entire film is interspersed with jerky movements back and forth in time. In one scene, Arthur has a flashback of his parents’ death; in another, he narrates his plan of action while the scene is chopped and spliced with the one in which the described plan is unfolding. The overall effect, given the pace of the editing, is dizzying. One cannot immediately tell if the events hav

Umbra • 17th April 2017

On Finding Life in Death: Interview with Thomas Lüchinger and Samuel Kellenberger|| by Sumeet Kaur

On Finding Life in Death: Interview with Thomas Lüchinger and Samuel Kellenberger

Thomas Lü​chinger's filmography is generously sprinkled with philosophical ideas, particularly those of Buddhism and the Baha'i faith. At the 5th Lakeside Documentary Festival held in April 2017 in Naukuchiatal, Uttarakhand, we spoke to the Swiss filmmaker and the co-editor, Samuel Kellenberger, about their latest film, Being There (Da Sein).

Deccan Chronicle • 7th April 2017

Ghost in the Shell movie review: A shell without a ghost

Manga is essentially Japanese; its roots go well beyond 19th century Japanese art which, with its emphasis on space instead of time, defines the relationship between atmosphere and identity. At the same time, Japanese identity is essentially Japanese; the country is known for not being open to multiculturalism. These two ideas explain how and why Rupert Sanders’ remake of Ghost in the Shell pales in front of Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 adaption of the Manga series. The film is set in the future in Japan

Umbra • 1st April 2017

The Place is Waiting: Interview with Roop Ghai|| by Sumeet Kaur

The Place is Waiting: Interview with Roop Ghai

At a recently concluded documentary film festival, I watched an Alexandru Belc film, Cinema Mon Amour, about its manager’s struggle to keep one of the very last cinemas in Romania alive and functional. The camera follows the manager as he ambles through the theatre and recalls the days when the place was bustling with activity. ‘How do things look now?’, his voiceover contemplates, ‘...like the place is waiting.’ It seemed perfectly timed, for my m

The Asian Age • 18th February 2017

Moonlight movie review: Lyricism unites with imagery

Juan becomes a father figure to Little and like every parent, strives to be just good enough.

In less than 15 minutes, Moonlight unfolds to reveal a group of young black boys, huddled together to play American football. Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes is rudely interrupted by the blaring horn of a train passing nearby; as the camera pans away we see that the ball is really a wad of newspapers. The boys gang up on the most vulnerable player — our protagonist — the tiniest and the easiest person to pi