FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Pawan Kumar
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) The way a film built may not be an important factor for recommending a movie. Nevertheless, it’s important to note that this well made multi-genre movie is a crowd funded project (which I’ve not considered in the rating).
2) This non-linear film tries to cover a lot of things in 135 minutes. It is about the other side of ‘stardom’, love, urbanization, Film-mafia, drugs and euthanasia.
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Anusha Rizvi, Mahmood Farooqui
Setting: Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) Satire is a difficult genre. It’s delicate but when curated properly in a film, it just beats other genres. Peepli live is a film to be studied in this regard.
2) It addresses multiple formal and known issues as a country we’re facing. That too how? This amazing screenplay starts as a comedy plot, starts growing – it steps into politics & media, then it makes you sympathetic- it steps into poverty and innocence of people in that drought hit village, by now you start empathizing with these people. It’s a pure win to a cinema as a medium.
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Neeraj Ghaywan
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) The film is about conflicts. Conflict between life & death; conflict between to be or not to be; conflict between loving someone and letting them go. Movie doesn’t conclude what is right and wrong. That’s where the film wins big time.
2) Superb casting and simple screenplay makes the film run so smoothly that you get immersed into its own zone.
Note: Masaan means ‘Cemetery’
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Ritesh Batra
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) Watching Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a steadily growing cinema like this is a real treat.
2) The storyline is totally atypical to what is normally seen in even well accepted Indian films. The film is amazingly captivating in terms of how it takes both its story and characters together, keeping ‘life in Mumbai city’ at the center.
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Anurag Kashyap
Setting: Town/Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) Gulaal is stuffed with multiple things – cast politics, youth exploitation, love betrayal and also the doomsday poetry. How? watch the film. Thank Piyush Mishra and Anurag Kashyap later.
2) It’s intense & brutal from start to end, it is as restless as the characters in the film are. So the characters of the film nicely fit into the film.
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Vasan Bala
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) It’s a laughter-capsule cinema. From the very beginning you’ll understand it’s going to be a fun ride.
2) The cliches here are intentional, powerful and when watched carefully we learn that writer/director is trying to address lot more than what it looks like on the surface.
Note: The title in English: ‘The Man who Feels No Pain’
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: M.Sasikumar
Setting: Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) It’s a brilliant multi-genre film which keeps the audience stick to their seats with lot of amazing plot-twists.
2) This countryside family drama linked with betrayal politics is a thrilling watch from start to end.
Note: Inspired by this film, Anurag Kashyap went on to make Gangs of Wasseypur (part-1 & 2).
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Vetrimaaran
Setting: Town/Suburban
Why FiC recommends?
1) Most of the films dealing with ‘abuse of power’ end up telling stories of some ‘larger than life’ characters or some magical turning points. Visaranai is not like that.
2) One of the best crime thrillers coming from India. It’s brutal, retains authenticity and plot twists are deep and disturbing.
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Qaushiq Mukherjee
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) It’s a quite daring take on the lonliness of a lost (not literally) young man. The biggest plus point is the film doesn’t hide any thoughts of the protagonist.
2) It dares not to sugarcoat the qualities of its protagonist – which is inherently common in most of the films. We see Gandu as he is.
3) The relationship (friendship?) between Gandu and Rickshaw is fascinating to watch.
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Vikramaditya Motwane
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) Films about adolescence are always fascinating and some of them are equally melancholic. You tend to slip back in memories recalling those gone days.
2) This film has a magical pace and successfully brings in all type of right emotions. As it moves it starts adding more layers to it in terms of treatment of both story-line and characters. Any comment on its climax would be a spoiler.
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Ashim Ahluwalia
Setting: Urban/Suburban
Why FiC recommends?
1) It has style. It has to have because the movie is about a 70s/80s Indian C-grade filmmaker. Without style and that differentiating confidence they couldn’t have run that industry.
2) It has that haunting pace which constantly grabs you in and pushes you out at times, still you’ll tend to stick to it. The costume design and setting of filmsetting look very authentic.
3) Nawazuddin Siddiqui & Anil George’s hard hitting performance in this film is a treat to watch!
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Hansal Mehta
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) I don’t know why but most of the LGBT related films are made poetic. And Aligarh is not an exception. Yet this is an important movie considering it is made in India.
2) There is this constant tenderness throughout this film and it keeps on injecting a kind of sorrow into the viewers. If this is not a win, what else is?
Trivia: Lead actor Manoj Bajpayee told in a podcast (Audible Suno): “Yes I didn’t win any award for the film, but if award functions- including national awards, don’t care about their reputations, I won’t mind if I don’t win any award in my lifetime”
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Shlok Sharma
Setting: Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) Very very hard-hitting film which revolves around a secret relationship between a school teacher and his student. It’s not an easy watch as the story starts taking creepy twists as it moves forward. (and what a climax!)
2) Intense performance by both Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shweta Tripathi.
FiC Rating: 3.5/5
Dir: Roopa Rao
Setting: Town/School
Why FiC recommends?
1) High-school love stories are always fascinating for the purity it holds and those curious minds of that age bracket.
2) This film is very calm, soothing and not very easy throughout. Where there is love there’s pain too!
Note: ‘Gantumoote’ means ‘Baggage’
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Sanal Kumar Sasidharan
Setting: Road/Moving Vehicle/Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) This film gives a tight slap to the patriarchal society which claims to worship Goddesses.
2) The making is one of its kind and as the movie progresses it becomes hard to digest because it’s so hard-hitting in what it tries to convey!
3) The whole movie was shot in one night and without a written script.
Note: The movie isn’t released in India because the Govt has put a ban on it.
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Girish Kasaravalli
Setting: Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) It’s a very diligent adaptation of on one of the highly acclaimed story by Amaresh Nudgoni.
2) The story set up in a village is mysterious and revolves around a gravedigger.
3) It challenges the audience to question regarding the connection between ‘faith’ and ‘life’.
Note: ‘Kanasembo Kudureyaneri’ means ‘Riding a Stallion of a Dream’
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Faiza Ahmad Khan
Setting: Small Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) Aspirations don’t have any pre-conditions where it should arise from. A man from a small town wants to make movies and he makes it. He re-creates none other than ‘Superman’! He with his team runs a local movie industry.
2) It starts off as a funny take on the efforts by these amateur filmmakers, but slowly it starts growing on you and by the time it reaches the end you’ll be moved!
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Rohit Mittal
Setting: Urban/Suburban
Why FiC recommends?
1) Deepak Sampat’s performance in this flick as a ‘disturbed-mind’ is simply incomparable!
2) The trick that movie uses onto audience in it’s format & techniques is brilliant. It’s one of the rare indie masterpiece coming out of India.
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Siddartha Jatla
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) These cities look so huge. They’re huge, but is it really capable of giving enough space to all its inhabitants to live a dignified life?
2) Stellar performance by all the actors make you feel for the characters.
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Bhaskar Hazarika
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) To say this is something ‘new’ would be an understatement. Even a single hint would act as a ‘spoiler’!
2) Sometimes we know who we are, deep down. But it dies because there’s nothing for it to cling to. This movie attempts something around it!
Note: Knowingly not tagging the category ‘horror’ to it!
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Chaitanya Tamhane
Setting: Urban/Suburban
Why FiC recommends?
1) So slow and real that it makes you restless. If you like slow-phased ultra-realistic movies this is your thing!
2) A mirror to the Indian judicial system – almost the way it is, if not exactly!
