52 Seconds
A sharp, sprightly parody of censorship, official and self-imposed, which corrodes film images in India.
1'
India
IFFR 2023
Engineering student Sameer is picked up by the police from his hostel following a deadly bombing incident. He turns out to be innocent, but the cops blackmail him into infiltrating a terrorist ring headed by his college roommate Yasin. After all, Sameer has a Muslim name, which both gives him access to Yasin’s social circle and renders him expendable in the police’s eyes. But the plan goes awry when Sameer descends deeper into this twisted game.
Set in Ahmedabad in the Western Indian state of Gujarat, Dakxinkumar Bajrange’s Sameer unfolds 10 years after the intercommunal riots of 2002, which resulted in the deaths of over a thousand civilians, predominantly Muslims. The violence left people broken, and the atmosphere was so tense that a child’s mischief was enough to set two marginalised communities living in the same slum against each other. The job of restoring sanity falls on the shoulders of Manto, a local theatre artist standing in for Bajrange, a playwright-activist himself.
A topical political thriller with admirable performances, Sameer is rife with dramatic twists and turns that cohere into a damning picture of the state of the nation. Slippery in plot and politics though it might appear, this is a film that does not mince its words.
– Srikanth Srinivasan
IFFR 2023
Programme IFFR 2023
In 2022, India celebrated the 75th anniversary of independence. But is really all well in the ‘world’s largest democracy’? Both documentaries and fictional narratives reflect on the socio-political development of the past 30 years – and ask: Is the institutional success of right-wing Hindu-nationalist groups and the persecution of dissenting voices a sign for the shape of things to come – and not only in India?
Read more about this programmeA sharp, sprightly parody of censorship, official and self-imposed, which corrodes film images in India.
1'
India
IFFR 2023
Night-time street views of marginalised student groups protesting India’s controversial citizenship legislation.
76'
India
IFFR 2023
Humanity trumps borders and governments in a big-hearted, unabashedly sentimental Bollywood musical comedy.
163'
India
IFFR 2023