The Journal
Essays & Dispatches
Long reads on the films, filmmakers and movements of meaningful Indian cinema.
Apur Sansar (1959)
Apur Sansar (1959) is Satyajit Ray’s conclusion to the Apu Trilogy that takes a Calcutta writer through an accidental marriage, his wife’s death in childbirth and the years he spends away from his son, and ends with a return that it refuses to call a redemption.
Aparajito (1956)
The second film of Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy follows a Brahmin boy from the ghats of Varanasi to a Calcutta printing press, tracing the cost his education exacts on the mother he leaves behind.
15 Park Avenue (2005)
15 Park Avenue (2005) is Aparna Sen’s English-language film about a young woman with schizophrenia who inhabits a private reality centered on a home and family that don’t exist, and the older half-sister who devotedly cares for her, a compassionate exploration of mental illness, perception, and the boundaries of what we call real.
Tamas (1988)
Tamas (1988) is a made for television film written and directed by Govind Nihalani. Based on a Hindi novel of the same name by Bhisham Sahni, Tamas is set in the backdrop of a small town in the now Pakistani Punjab during the partition of India in 1947.
Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (2002)
Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (2002), also released as A Tale of a Naughty Girl, is a Bengali drama by Buddhadev Dasgupta about a fourteen-year-old girl who defies her mother’s plan to sell her into prostitution in favour of returning to school.
Ashadh Ka Ek Din (1971)
Ashadh Ka Ek Din (1971), based on Mohan Rakesh’s play of the same name, is Mani Kaul’s adaptation of the love triangle between Sanskrit poet Kalidasa, Mallika, and Priyangmanjari.
Vijeta (1982)
Vijeta (1982) is a coming-of-age Hindi drama directed by Govind Nihalani, tracing a young man’s passage into the Indian Air Force amid his parents’ fraught marriage.