It is very heartening that Indian cinema is nurturing a bright, young generation of talents, who are making socially conscious movies. Importantly, these films have such engaging characters and narratives, that they don’t come across as films with a ‘message’. These directors include Chaitanya Tamhane (Court), Bikas Mishra (Chauranga), Anand Gandhi (Ship of Theseus), Churni Ganguly’s Nirbashito (The Banished, Bengali) and M Manikandan’s Kaakkaa Muttai (Crow’s Egg, Tamil). They are different from the previous generation of socially conscious filmmakers, in that many of these directors are seriously networked internationally; they often secure foreign funding and foreign crew, international festival selection and awards. Court already has a foreign sales agent, Artscope, while Kaakkaa Muttai, the Tamil film, even has Hollywood’s Fox Star Studios as co-producer and sales agent (come on, now, how many indie Hindi films can boast of Hollywood backing?). And all this, with their very first feature films! This generation understands that the more locally rooted and honest a film is, the more universal its appeal. Now the main challenge is distribution in India (Ship of Theseus, ‘presented’ by Kiran Rao, was released theatrically).

When I saw Chaitanya Tamhane’s short film Six Strands in 2011, I immediately recognised his powerful and distinctive voice. Set in Darjeeling’s tea estates, Six Strands is about a tough woman estate owner tackling a brewing rebellion. In a daring move, the film is in pure gibberish, but sounds like it could be a North Eastern dialect. Court is impressive, and deserves all its multiple awards, including Lion of the Future for Best Debut Film of the festival and Best Film of the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival, and Golden Gateway for Best Film (International Competition) and Silver Gateway for Best Director, and Jury Special Mention for the ensemble cast at the Mumbai Film Festival.