A look at our world in crisis from a truly oblique angle: Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state, home to some of contemporary cinema’s most edgy work.
Films in ‘House on Fire’
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Metropolis
Lokesh Kanagaraj IFFR 2018 135′Four nameless characters drift through long Chennai nights and bleak Chennai days. They’re office workers and gangsters, lovers and passion rejects, goons out to hurt and lost souls just looking to get unharmed out of messes they didn’t make. One of last year's biggest revelations in Tamil cinema.
[EB: Ik weet niet precies wat er bedoeld wordt met 'passion rejects'.] -
I Am God
Bala IFFR 2018 125′Rudran was send away from home as a child by his superstitious father. When Rudran, an aghori (an ascetic man of the Gods, dwelling at times among the dead) throws his lot in with a bunch of human-trafficking beggars, his life becomes hell. Seeing is believing. You haven't seen anything like this before.
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Evil Engulfs
Nalan Kumarasamy IFFR 2018 135′Das, a professional kidnapper (cum world-class bullshitter) takes on a bunch of young assistants. One of Das' main principles is: never kidnap someone involved in politics. So what do you do if you're tricked into doing just that? A wild and crazy mix of crime flick and sharp social satire!
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Ruthless Man
Vetri Maaran IFFR 2018 150′Prabhu's already shaken but still safe-seeming middle-class existence finally falls apart when he loses his precious bike. Suddenly, he finds himself in a bleak world of betrayal and violence. A key work of modern Tamil cinema that plays like the psycho-thriller version of Vittorio de Sica's neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves (1948).