Shape of Momo
Drama, Family (Nepali)
Bishnu returns to her Himalayan village after quitting her job, only to face mounting family pressures and societal expectations. As tensions rise with her pregnant sister's arrival and a budding relationship with a "suitable" boy from her community, Bishnu must (more…)
Made in India: A Titan Story
Drama (Hindi)
In a market ruled by smuggling and foreign brands, a determined Indian man Xerxes Desai, with the help of his team, dares to build a world-class watch from scratch. Battling rejection, failure, and global humiliation, they transform Titan into a (more…)
Gullak S05
Comedy, Drama, Family (Hindi)
Set in quaint by-lanes in the heart of India, Gullak is a collection of disarming and relatable tales of the Mishra family. (more…)
Guild Reviews
Peddi
Action, Drama (Telugu)
In 1980s rural Andhra Pradesh, A spirited villager unites his community through sports to defend their pride against a powerful rival.
Cast:
Ram Charan, Janhvi Kapoor, Shiva Rajkumar, Jagapati Babu, Divyendu Sharma, Rajatabha Dutta, Dayanand Reddy, Upendra Limaye, Viji Chandrasekhar, Satya
Director:
Buchi Babu Sana
Sat, June 6 2026
Baahubali, KGF and Salaar’s success has set a trend: films increasingly become hype instruments for their heroes. The template is now painfully familiar: a stranger arrives in town, bewildered by the hero’s omnipresent worship. He then meets another archetype: the hypeman, clearly of the land, dispenses worldly wisdom like a street philosopher. The stranger, suitably elitist and condescending, serves as the audience surrogate. The hype rural man becomes the narrator. In Peddi, Boman Irani gets the thankless honour of the uber-cool stranger, dragged through a dense forest by the hypeman just to hear the legend of Peddi (Ram Charan).
Sat, June 6 2026
Fri, June 5 2026
Pudathama enti malli? (Will we be born again?), Ram Charan’s character Peddi asks at several points in his new Telugu film directed by Buchi Babu Sana. More statement than question, the line underscores the protagonist’s belief that life comes only once, and his determination to stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Buchi Babu frames Peddi’s fight for his own identity and that of his village like a sports biopic, powered by Ram Charan’s performance, A.R. Rahman’s music and R. Rathnavelu’s evocative visuals. The 189-minute film travels back to the 1990s. When a member of the Indian Olympics Association, played by Boman Irani, witnesses an extraordinary spectacle in and around Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, he is drawn into Peddi’s story. At its core, the film is centred on the struggles of sugarcane field labourers in the region. Yet, its storytelling borrows liberally from sports dramas across languages, evoking everything from Sarpatta Parambarai to Chandu Champion and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.
Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai
Romance, Comedy (Hindi)
When Jass leaves his marriage over conflicting priorities, a new romance abroad is upended by shocking revelations, forcing him to confront love, loyalty, and the true meaning of commitment.
Cast:
Varun Dhawan, Mrunal Thakur, Pooja Hegde, Maniesh Paul, Chunky Panday, Jimmy Shergill, Mouni Roy, Rakesh Bedi, Kubbra Sait, Rajesh Kumar
Director:
David Dhawan
Sat, June 6 2026
You know how, in the middle of a film, a character suddenly does something impulsive and exaggerated and totally out of whack, and you instantly realise it’s a dream sequence? It’s not a great gimmick and you can see through it, so when the character wakes up, you can’t help but accuse the movie of cheating. The whole of Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai feels like that dream sequence. Except nobody wakes up and it’s endless; there is no movie at all. Anything happens, anyone happens, every moment unfolds like an unhinged prank. It’s also the kind of hallucinatory dream one might have after drunkenly rewatching Biwi No. 1 (1999) in 2026 and wondering what an update would look like. The title of this film is a line from a ‘playful’ song sung by a naughty husband cheating on his traditional wife with a model: “if I’m young, I will love”. If I’m a man, I will stray.
Sat, June 6 2026
शादी को पांच साल हुए। जस को बच्चा चाहिए, बानी को नहीं। तलाक की नौबत। जस आगे बढ़ गया। उसे प्रीति मिली। एक दिन पता चला कि प्रीति मां बनने वाली ह-जस के बच्चे की। अचानक बानी वापस आ गई। वह भी मां बनने वाली है-जस के बच्चे की। अब जस बेचारा डबल रोल खेल रहा है। कभी प्रीति कभी बानी के बीच झूल रहा है। इस झोलझाल में और भी कई किरदार आ-आकर अपनी पींगें बढ़ा रहे हैं। क्या होगा जस का? बानी के पास जाएगा या प्रीति के? या फिर…? जिन दर्शकों ने डेविड धवन की फिल्में देखी हैं उन्हें मालूम है कि डेविड किस किस्म का सिनेमा बनाते हैं। उनके सिनेमा में दिमाग को टैंशन मुक्त करके एन्जॉय वाले मोड में डाला जाता है, तर्क और सवाल उठाने वाली नसों को ढीला छोड़ा जाता है, पलकों को झपकाए बिना पर्दे पर तेज रफ्तार से आ रहे रंग-बिरंगे नजारों से आंखों को सेंका जाता है, कानों को खुला रखा जाता है ताकि चुलबुली बातें मिस न हो जाएं और साथ ही कदमों व सिर को गानों के साथ थिरकाया जाता है। तो लो जी मुबारक हो, डेविड धवन के सिग्नेचर स्टाइल वाला वही सिनेमा एक बार फिर आपके सामने है।
Gullak S05
Comedy, Drama, Family (Hindi)
Set in quaint by-lanes in the heart of India, Gullak is a collection of disarming and relatable tales of the Mishra family.
Cast:
Jameel Khan, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Harsh Mayar, Shivankit Singh Parihar, Sunita Rajwar, Anant Joshi
Sat, June 6 2026
As a wise antihero once said: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain”. Who knew Harvey Dent was referring to one of TVF’s flagship shows in its fifth and greediest season yet? Gullak has been critic-proof for years, in the sense that it’s built to be liked and ‘felt’ as the cinema of middle-class existence; as storytelling that thrives on nothingness. If it doesn’t work for you, you are accused of not knowing the real India. If it’s too boring for you, you are not wired to handle the mundane colours of everyday life. They will have you believe that the genre is shaped by sweet dullness: the invisible moments between the lofty landmarks of living, the unremarkable and forgotten days between the scenes that stories usually show.
Sat, June 6 2026
ओवर द टॉप कॉन्टेंट का दावा करने वाले OTT पर ‘गुल्लक’ एक ऐसी खास सीरीज रही है, जिसने छोटे शहर के आम मिडिल क्लास परिवार के सीधे-सच्चे, खट्ठे-मीठे किस्से सुनाकर दर्शकों के दिलों में परमानेंट निवास बना लिया। अपने पांचवें सीजन में भी यह सीरीज आपको मिश्रा परिवार की जिंदगी के उन्हीं रोजमर्रा के छोटे-छोटे पलों, बदलावों और चुनौतियों से सहज तरीके से रूबरू करवाती है। इस बार 30-30 मिनट के 7 एपिसोड हैं। यह सीजन वेब सीरीज की दुनिया में फैंस के इस दुलारे शो के लिए इसलिए भी खास है कि कास्ट में बड़ा बदलाव है। मिश्रा जी के बड़े बेटे अन्नू के रोल में अनंत वी. जोशी की एंट्री हुई है, उन्होंने वैभव राज गुप्ता को रिप्लेस किया है। शो के सबसे पॉपुलर और मुख्य किरदार में इस तरह का बदलाव अब से पहले देखने को नहीं मिला था। जाहिर है अनंत के हिस्से एक बड़ी चुनौती है।
Fri, June 5 2026
A supersized version of Gullak has arrived for its fifth season. We’ve watched the Mishras grow in their humble abode all these years. In the latest season, the family makes some instrumental decisions that will affect everyone. But while The Viral Fever (TVF) has an emotional end, the show takes some amusing and meaningful detours. It also adds to the lore of the Gullak universe; if you’ve been a fan since the beginning, there are welcome rewards ahead for viewers. Overall, the comfort series continues to delight and make you want to know more about this loyal, caring clan.
Masters of the Universe
Action, Fantasy, Science Fiction (English)
After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam back to Eternia, where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor. To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela and Duncan/Man-At-Arms, and embrace his true destiny as He-Man — the most powerful man in the universe.
Cast:
Nicholas Galitzine, Jared Leto, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba, Alison Brie, Kristen Wiig, James Purefoy, Charlotte Riley, Morena Baccarin, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson
Director:
Travis Knight
Sat, June 6 2026
It doesn’t do to go around dressed in a loincloth, wielding a shiny sword and declaring oneself “He-Man” these days – at least not in a big-bucks Hollywood film that is hoping not to cause any affront, to he, she, they, them, or it. So how do you tap into a character that was born as a Mattel toy and largely remembered only by an audience who first encountered him as an animated TV series in the 1980s, and is now into their middle age? Director Travis Knight and screenwriters Chris Butler and Adam and Aaron Nee (who have several award nominations between them) settle on a tone that is constantly mocking the whole concept while trying to kick off a successful franchise with it It is surprising how well they are able to do this when they do it well. It is as surprising how the film still manages to feel and look like a frenetic video game being played by a bunch of compulsive teenagers.
Maa Behen
Comedy, Thriller (Hindi)
In this dark comedy, a woman calls her estranged daughters in the middle of the night with chilling news — there's a dead body in her kitchen.
Cast:
Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri, Ravi Kishan, Dharna Durga, Jatin Sarna, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Arunoday Singh, Shardul Bhardwaj
Director:
Suresh Triveni
Sat, June 6 2026
By taking India’s most exhausted street insult and turning it into a literal roll call — Maa (Madhuri Dixit) and Behen (Triptii Dimri and Dharna Durga) — the prolific Suresh Triveni essentially asks this week: What if the women routinely weaponised in local cuss words actually team up to hide a dead body or the rot of patriarchal entitlement. It shares DNA with Darlings and Haseen Dillruba, pulp-crime comedies headlined by mainstream actors in which ordinary women subvert expectations by outsmarting society, only to reveal that the crime we panicked over is more visceral than it seems. Set in a middle-class housing society, cleverly called Adarsh Colony, Maa Behen gradually becomes a physical representation of societal surveillance. The neighbour network, led by Charitra Kumar Gupta (Ravi Kishan), is designed to show how a judgmental community assassinates the character of a single woman, a single mother.
Sat, June 6 2026
‘Maa’, ‘Behen’ — two words that spawn a litany of abuses. When an acclaimed director, Suresh Triveni, chooses to name the film so, rest assured it is not any cursory nomenclature. It comes loaded with a host of meanings and layers and, in its own way, flips more than one stereotype. Why, the main characters too derive their names from a popular detergent advertisement. What’s in a name? A lot. But before we move to what the Netflix movie entails at deeper levels, let it be said that this dark comedy thrives on fun and subversive elements. The women here — who else but a mother, Rekha (Madhuri Dixit), and her two daughters, Jaya (Tripti Dimri) and Sushma (Dharna Durga), are unabashedly unapologetic. In the very first scene, we see Jaya sitting in an IVF centre minus her spouse. Soon after, she gets a call from her mother who has apparently killed her neighbour Charitra Gupta (Ravi Kishan) in her own house. As she and her sister Sushma descend upon the mother’s house, drama unfolds almost like the theatre of the absurd.
Sat, June 6 2026
सभ्य लोगों की कॉलोनी में रहने वाली अकेली विधवा रेखा जी को कॉलोनी की औरतें ‘चालू’ समझती हैं और मर्द प्यासी नज़रों से देखते हैं। खासकर पड़ोसी गुप्ता जी के परिवार की नज़र में तो वह ‘डायन’ हैं। गुप्ता जी के घर में शादी है और एक रात वह रेखा जी के घर में आकर ‘मर’ गए हैं। अब रेखा और उनकी बेटियों जया व सुषमा को यह ‘लाश’ ठिकाने लगानी हैं। लेकिन कभी आ जाती हैं गुप्ताइन जी, कभी आ जाते हैं गुप्ता जी के साले दारोगा जी तो कभी रेखा के दामाद जी। अब भयंकर वाला कांड हुआ है और उसे छुपाना भी है तो खलबली तो मचेगी ही। लेकिन इस खलबली के पीछे का सच क्या है? क्या गुप्ता जी सचमुच ‘मरे’ हैं? गुप्ता जी वहां आए ही क्यों थे? क्या रेखा जी सचमुच ‘डायन’ हैं? क्या रेखा, जया और सुषमा अपने परिवार पर लगे दागों को धोकर सफेदी की चमकार वापस ला पाएंगी?
Bandar
Thriller (Hindi)
TV star Samar's life spirals when his ex Gayatri accuses him of rape after he blocks contact with her. Despite his new relationship with Khushi, he faces arrest and encounters a corrupt justice system.
Cast:
Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad, Sapna Pabbi, Joju George, Riddhi Sen, Ankush Gedam, Nagesh Bhonsle, Jeetendra Joshi, Jaimini Pathak
Director:
Anurag Kashyap
Sat, June 6 2026
Almost two decades after Dev.D, Anurag Kashyap returns to conduct another autopsy of male entitlement, but in the post-#MeToo space, he has a far more treacherous, shifting terrain to navigate. The filmmaker’s cinematic identity is built on a refusal to provide clean moral answers, and Bandar initially promises to be his ultimate playground of gray before it stagnates. Samar Mehra (Bobby Deol), a fading, entitled television star, has his life systematically dismantled when his ex-girlfriend Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi) hits him with a rape accusation. Anurag, along with screenwriters Sudeep Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee, makes the audience sit with an agonising double vision, trapped between a deeply flawed, hollowed-out man-child and an erratic, unpredictable accuser. He denies the audience a clear hero to root for or a definitive villain to despise. The policeman invokes Bachchan to remind Samar, ‘no means no,’ but there is no one to tell Gayatri the boundaries of a consensual relationship. The film touches on humanity’s status between left- and right-swipes. When policemen cover his face to save him from the marauding media, Samar’s claustrophobic mind goes to the moment when he casually demanded to choke Gayatri for momentary physical pleasure.
Sat, June 6 2026
First and foremost, it’s great that Anurag Kashyap is back directing a film. Kashyap has, in the past, delivered some of the most iconic films of our time, which have been lauded for being gritty and real. The man has, in the last few years, forayed into acting (he is earning praises in that department, too) and has publicly admitted that he is disillusioned with Bollywood and its ways. Which is why his latest directorial venture, Bandar, featuring Bobby Deol in the lead, is a special film. The film has been written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee, the men behind web series like Pataal Lok 2 and Kohhra. Expectations, thus, were high from Bandar. But does it live up to those expectations? Here’s what I thought.
Fri, June 5 2026
Samar Mehra is not a has-been actor. His career never took off and at 50, acting opportunities have shrunk considerably, and so have his relationship prospects. Samar — played by an almost opaque Bobby Deol, a necessity for the part and not an encumbrance — sustains by lip-syncing to his old hits (C’mon baby, with him looking like a shiny disco ball, is addictive) at weddings and entertains himself by being on a dating app. His rent is overdue, so is surgery for a bad back. Unmarried, his current on-off date is Khushi (a refreshing Saba Azad). Cynical and exhausted, one night Samar finds his life upended when cops unceremoniously land up and herd him off to jail. A disbelieving and distraught Samar learns that he has been accused of rape by Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi), a woman he claims he had right-swiped on, got intimate with a few times and ghosted when she got obsessive. But in a post #MeToo society skewed against the man in such cases — “I am a victim,” Samar laments. “You are the accused until proven innocent,” his lawyer (Riddhi Sen is solidly cast) says bluntly — he finds that the stakes are heavily stacked against him.
Parimala and Co
Crime, Comedy (Tamil)
A dark comedy centered around a chaotic family whose tangled relationships and unpredictable situations lead to emotionally charged and absurd moments, blending humor with underlying tension and drama.
Cast:
Jayaram, Urvashi, Sanjana Krishnamoorthy, Ananthika Sanilkumar, Mysskin, Yogi Babu, Sandy, Santosh Shoban, G. K. M. Tamil Kumaran, Swasika
Director:
Pandiraj
Writer:
Pandiraj
Fri, June 5 2026
Circumstance. When a family is facing a particularly distressing period in their lives, what really matters is their response to the circumstances. Over the years, cinema has often told stories of families that stick together to face whatever comes their way. We have seen the Drishyams, the Koodi Vaazhndhaal Kodi Nanmais, the Kolamaavu Kokilas, the Doctors, and even last week’s release, Blast. Families finding themselves painted into a corner, and doing everything possible to get out of it, is a time-tested template, and yet… director Pandiraaj’s latest, Parimala and Co, does the one thing you shouldn’t do when it comes to making a whodunnit family drama. He makes things… boring.
Cape Fear
Drama, Crime (English)
A storm is coming for happily married attorneys Anna and Tom Bowden when Max Cady, the notorious killer they are responsible for putting behind bars, is let out of prison and wants revenge.
Cast:
Javier Bardem, Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson, CCH Pounder, Lily Collias, Joe Anders, Anna Baryshnikov, Jamie Hector, Malia Pyles
Fri, June 5 2026
There’s a specific cruelty in asking an audience to hold Robert De Niro‘s memory in their head while watching anything. Scorsese’s 1991 Cape Fear is one of the most viscerally unpleasant American studio films ever greenlit. It was a picture so brutally disturbing that it feels like it physically assaults you. De Niro’s Max Cady showed that when the id snaps and has a grudge, it’s almost like unleashing raw fury from God. Nick Antosca’s ten-episode Apple TV limited series (executive-produced, with some degree of irony, by both Martin Scorsese himself and Steven Spielberg) has the considerable audacity to set up shop in that shadow and try to grow something in the dark. Remarkably, it partly succeeds.
Fri, June 5 2026
The latest star-led prestige drama from Apple TV is Cape Fear. Created by Nick Antosca, the new remake based on John D. MacDonald’s book The Executioners and the previous Hollywood films elongates the story of vengeance. It expands the roles of the Bowden family while creating an aura of ambiguity around notorious villain Max Cady, now played by Javier Bardem. With the backing of Oscar-winning filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, the new Cape Fear is a chilling page-turner and psychological thriller you just can’t get enough of.
Brown
Crime, Drama, Mystery (Hindi)
Brown is a recovering alcoholic, who works for Kolkata Police and has to investigate the murder of a young woman from a well-known family.
Cast:
Karisma Kapoor, Helen, Soni Razdan, Surya Sharma, K.K. Raina, Jisshu Sengupta
Fri, June 5 2026
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A pill-popping, alcohol-swigging, chain-smoking detective is forced back on duty to catch a killer terrorising a decrepit, dingy city. Before the bodies pile up, she must track down and stop the devil whilst confronting her own demons, wading through the ghosts of her past and navigating a moody murder mystery. The air is thick with despair and grief. The (female) victim was found mutilated. The list of suspects is long, ranging from shifty family members to shifty exes to shifty stalkers. Everyone’s fractured, broken, carrying a truckload of trauma.
Fri, June 5 2026
Seven episodes of Brown later, I couldn’t help but make my way to a place I never visit: ChatGPT. I keyed in a series of prompts which looked exactly like this: Serial killer + Murder mystery + Kolkata + Anglo-Indian community + Alcoholic and troubled cop + Food + Rabindrasangeet + Noir feel + Shadowy spaces + Kolkata landmarks + Sepia frames. In less than five seconds, I was staring at a plot uncannily similar to what I had just watched. It had even suggested a title for the story: “Sepia Nights”. ‘Sepia’ is, of course, described as “a deep reddish-brown colour”. ‘Brown’ is the operative word here. Before you rap my knuckles for venturing even close to AI, Brown has already beaten me to it. The series, now streaming on ZEE5, is nothing more than an algorithmic amalgamation of everything that Kolkata is. More importantly, it shows more of what Kolkata isn’t. Granted that Brown is a serial-killer thriller and not a geography lesson. But for a story that relies so much on atmospherics, it is a shame that director Abhinay Deo, along with his team of writers (Suri Gopalan, Diggi Sissodia, Sunayana Kumari and Mayukh Ghosh) choose to present the city through such a stereotypical, trite lens.
Made in India: A Titan Story
Drama (Hindi)
In a market ruled by smuggling and foreign brands, a determined Indian man Xerxes Desai, with the help of his team, dares to build a world-class watch from scratch. Battling rejection, failure, and global humiliation, they transform Titan into a symbol of national pride and innovation.
Cast:
Naseeruddin Shah, Jim Sarbh, Vaibhav Tatwawadi, Lakshvir Saran, Kaveri Seth, Namita Dubey, Joy Sengupta, Ashwath Bhatt, Prateeksha Lonkar, Paresh Ganatra
Director:
Robby Grewal
Writer:
Karan Vyas
Fri, June 5 2026
Director Robbie Grewal’s series chronicling the origins of the Tata Empire’s iconic watch brand, for The Hollywood Reporter India. Based on Vinay Kamath’s book Titan: Inside India’s Most Successful Consumer Brand, the show follows how, through the 70s and 80s, Tata executive Xerxes Desai (Jim Sarbh) founded Titan and built a world-class watch under the guidance of JRD Tata (Naseeruddin Shah). Suchin finds the Amazon MX Player series warm, deeply felt and immensely huggable, drawing an unavoidable comparison to Rocket Boys given the shared heart-first DNA. He argues that more than a corporate success story, this is a tale framed as a fable of national pride, but one that soars because of its delicate love for its characters rather than its milestones. Across six achingly sincere episodes, he cares about the Titan story because he cares about the figures behind it.
Fri, June 5 2026
In theory, nothing about Made In India: A Titan Story is supposed to work. Starting with that corporate-core title. It’s hard not to be wary of well-mounted business success stories about brands and institutions that still exist. There’s the thinnest line between promotional productions and historical dramas. This six-episode series is adapted from Vinay Kamath’s book about the rise of Titan, the world-class watchmaking company founded by Xerxes Desai in pre-liberalisation India. It’s not exactly a rags-to-riches tale; it opens with Desai well into his career, and already an integral part of The Tata Group. It’s not your typical underdog tale either; Desai’s mentor is grand old J.R.D Tata himself, so even when Titan runs into its many bureaucratic and funding roadblocks, it’s not like the team has the odds entirely stacked against them. There’s also the ready-made patriotism angle; Titan unfolds to put the country on a map dominated by shiny Swiss companies. On paper, the series has all the ingredients of a persuasive marketing campaign. For a viewer, it’s the equivalent of trying to root for a nepo-baby in a landscape full of outsiders.
Fri, June 5 2026
Decades before the phrase became a sarkaari slogan, a world class product became a shining example of the dictum, Made In India. India’s first Quartz watch, Titan by the Tatas, proudly manufactured in India, for Indians, by Indians, was launched back in the late 80s. The timepiece that took on the entrenched might of old favourite HMT, and the ingrained habit of winding a knob, took its time getting there. Incorporating the setbacks and breakthroughs, it is a fascinating story of individual passion and solid teamwork, backed by the goodwill of one of India’s most powerful business houses. Under the charismatic-yet-mercurial leadership of the legendary Xerxes Desai, whose mentor was JRD himself, ‘The Titan Story’, based on Vinay Kamath’s book as an inside-look, is a saga which elicits multiple feelings: the confidence in an on-the-rise India, based on high-quality technology and best ethical practices, the demands of successful entrepreneurship, the power of an idea, the people who remained steadfast to their purpose, all wrapped up in popular Bollywood songs-driven nostalgia.
Shape of Momo
Drama, Family (Nepali)
Bishnu returns to her Himalayan village after quitting her job, only to face mounting family pressures and societal expectations. As tensions rise with her pregnant sister's arrival and a budding relationship with a "suitable" boy from her community, Bishnu must choose between conforming to tradition or claiming her independence.
Cast:
Gaumaya Gurung, Pashupati Rai, Shyama Shree Sherpa, Rahul Nawach Mukhia, Janaki Kadayat, Sonam Bomzon, Bhanu Maya Rai
Director:
Tribeny Rai
Writer:
Kislay Kislay, Tribeny Rai
Fri, June 5 2026
All Bishnu wants is to show she can do it all. Lift a gas cylinder. Ensure the family in the orange orchard pays up. Get her elder sister to finish her graduation. Get into a relationship. And not care ‘ki log kya kahenge’. But patriarchy lurks like a dark shadow in the village to which she has returned after a stint in New Delhi. And women have made peace with their roles and gender dynamics. So when Bishnu behaves like the man of the house, there are clashes with her mother and sister. For Bishnu’s mom, asserting independence is a way of disbanding from the community; for Bishnu, it is just the natural way to be. For her pregnant sister, there are regrets; for Bishnu, it’s never too late to do what you want. “I’ll see what kind of a husband a judgemental person likes you gets,” remarks her sister while her mother has had it with her temper and irritable behaviour.
Sun, May 31 2026
Why would anyone name a cat Azaadi? Perhaps every time you call your companion animal by that name, you give voice to an ache to break free. At the heart of the Nepali-language film Shape of Momo is Bishnu’s (Gaumaya Gurung) tabby cat, named exactly that. Aazadi isn’t an animal protagonist so much as a metaphor for the film’s politics of gender. The family rues that they should have liked a tomcat instead because a female cat would keep having litters. While it’s a perfectly practical concern in a domestic setting, Tribeny Rai’s debut feature is also about a generational belief that a family is somehow incomplete without a son.
Sun, May 31 2026
Shape of Momo (Nepali title: Chhora Jastai), directed by Tribeny Rai, emerges as one of the most compelling independent films of the year. Set in the picturesque landscapes of Sikkim, this intimate coming-of-age drama explores themes of womanhood, identity, migration, family expectations, and personal freedom. In this review, critic Saibal Chatterjee examines how Rai crafts a powerful narrative about a young woman’s struggle to reconcile her evolving sense of self with the expectations of the community she once called home. First-time director Tribeny Rai’s Nepali-language Shape of Momo starts with a poem that the protagonist, a young woman who has quit her job in Delhi and retreated to her family home in Sikkim, recites, intoning each word with intent and clarity.
Obsession
Horror (English)
After breaking the mysterious "One Wish Willow" to win his crush's heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
Cast:
Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter, Haley Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder, Anthony Pavone, Justice, Anthony Casabianca
Director:
Curry Barker
Writer:
Curry Barker
Wed, June 3 2026
n a market and year where Hollywood tentpole has been dominant — think Project Hail Mary, think Michael, think The Devil Wears Prada 2, led by the biggest so far, namely, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — the last few weeks have seen film buffs worldwide defy every kind of algorithm, glossy packaging and blockbuster potential, to troop into cinemas worldwide for a film which has quickly become what one can only describe as a “phenomenon”. Horror is having a moment on the Holly screen, and Obsession — to quote an unavoidable cliche — is now an obsession.
Tue, June 2 2026
At the heart of Curry Barker’s Obsession lies a simple, contained but brilliant premise: what if your dreams come true; but those dreams turn out to be your worst nightmare. Starting out writing comedy sketches under “That’s a Bad Idea”, this is only the writer-director’s second feature. Maximising the thin conceit and wringing the idea for social commentary, Obsession keeps the audience unsettled, as Barker takes the narrative to ludicrous and shocking heights. Bear (Michael Johnston), a young introverted man, probably in his 20s, is hopelessly in love with friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). They work together in a music store, living a harmless life in American suburbia: going to trivia nights, taking turns at the karaoke, hopping between bars and house parties. When she puts in her two-weeks notice at the workplace, he must hurry and tell her how he feels. He buys a ‘one-wish willow’ (a bark that is supposed to be split into two after one makes a wish) as her going-away present. Too shy to give it to her after he drops her home, Bear, without thinking too much, wishes ‘Nikki would love me more than anyone in the world’ and then breaks it. Much to Bear’s shock, his wish is granted, as Nikki turns around from near her door-step, walks towards his car, and insists if she can sleep at his house.
Fri, May 29 2026
Boy likes girl. What next? A lot of possible romances end right here. But what happens when the shy boy gets one miracle wish that can turn romance into a love story. A YouTuber on the road to fame after Obsession wowed audiences at Toronto International Film Festival, and got horror impresario Jason Blum onboard as executive producer, director Curry Barker is all of 26. He is also the writer of this tragi-comic horror film, with Cooper Tomlinson who plays one of the key characters, his long-time collaborator. Barker taps right into Gen Z’s au courant crisis and places Obsession in the irresolute territory where love is an all-consuming but never-consummate emotion. Relationships are situationships, and situations are at the mercy of just too many things. Commitment is a word – and world – too long.