Keyur Seta

What makes Follower more interesting and intriguing is that it organically weaves a story of close friendship between three friends and perfectly joins the same with the political conflict. It also makes fine use of flashback. The story could have been narrated in a linear form and it still would have been likeable. But the back and forth narrative converts the film also into a mystery drama. The events that lead Raghu into becoming a staunch supporter of the star political leader is the biggest triumph of the film. The production value makes the film look more like a telefilm. The lack of proper resources is clearly visible. This, however, doesn’t turn out to be a major issue because of the strong content at hand. The film is also shot in a creative manner by cinematographer Saket Gyani. It is laced with a number of impressive long one-take shots. The one that takes the cake is between Raghu and Parveen when both are riding their respective two-wheelers while conversing. The background score is minimally used, which goes with the nature of the film.

Filmmaker Shivam Nair’s The Diplomat tells the real story of an Indian lady Uzma Ahmed (Sadia Khateeb), a single mother. She falls in love with a Pakistani national Tahir (Jagjeet Sandhu) while working in Malaysia in 2017. He promises to marry her and help treat her daughter, who suffers from Thalassemia. However, after she lands in Pakistan, she sees the real face of Tahir. He takes Uzma to the deserted land of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where she realizes that he is already married and also has a few kids. But that’s not all. Tahir repeatedly physically and sexually abuses Uzma before forcing her to marry him. Once by chance, Uzma gets to know that the only way to escape from there is by somehow reaching the Indian embassy in Islamabad and ask for help. She makes Tahir take her to the Indian embassy through some pretext and, when he and his friends are away, barges inside the embassy and begs for help. But JP (John Abraham), the Deputy High Commissioner at the embassy, doubts her intentions.

India is obsessed with marriages. Weddings take place all over the country in different regions and among different communities and they are celebrated like anything. However, even in today’s times in rural India, the idea of a girl’s forced arranged marriage still exists. Filmmaker Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s Sthal (A Match) boldly highlights this social evil. The movie takes place in a village in Maharashtra named Dongargaon and it revolves around Savita Daulatrao Wandhare (Nandini Chikte). She is in her Final year of Bachelor of Arts course and her specialization subject is Sociology. Her father (Taranath Khiratkar) and mother (Sangita Sonekar) wish to get her married off soon but she wants to study further.

Malegaon, a small little town in Maharashtra, has its own little film industry. It all began after the mid-1990s when local artistes over there started making parodies of iconic Hindi films. These films were made in minimal costs and with whatever resources available. Some examples of these include Malegaon Ke Sholay, Malegaon Ki Shaan, etc. Filmmaker Reema Kagti’s Superboys Of Malegaon is a fictionalized tale of Nasir Sheikh and his friends who started the crazy film industry in Malegaon. Starting off in 1997, the film tells the story of Nasir (Adarsh Gourav), who runs a video parlour in Malegaon. He struggles to attract audiences as he screens international films. The parlour opposite to theirs is doing well as it screens mainstream Hindi films. Nasir, one fine day, learns the trick of editing and starts compiling action sequences from different films and releases them as a single film.

Actor Subodh Bhave’s directorial debut Katyar Kaljyat Ghusli (2015) turned out to be a spectacular affair. There were much expectations for his second film as a director Sangeet Manapmaan, not just because he is in the director’s chair. This film is also adapted from an old classic musical play, just like the 2015 movie. But this time, the end result turns out to be just a one-time watch. Sangeet Manapmaan is adapted from Krushnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar’s musical play of the same name, which was first staged way back in 1911. The story takes place in a kingdom in Maharashtra called Sangrampur in an unspecified era. The chief of army Kakasaheb (Shailesh Datar) expresses his wish to the queen of Sangrampur (Nivedita Saraf) to retire from his services because of his advanced age. Although the queen believes he is irreplaceable, she suggests Kakasaheb’s deputy Chandravilas (Sumeet Raghvan) as the next chief. Kakasaheb subtly disagrees with the queen as he believes, despite being a brave warrior, Chandravilas doesn’t possess the exact qualities to be the next chief.

Filmmaker Paresh Mokashi’s Mukkam Post Bombilwadi is based on his own Marathi play of the same name. The story takes place in 1942 when World War II is in full swing. Adolf Hitler (Prashant Damle) is under pressure for not having won the war despite fighting it for years, especially from his wife Eva (Deepti Lele). Winston Churchill (Anand Ingle), the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is making things more difficult for him. Meanwhile, in Bombilwadi village in Maharashtra’s Konkan, Varvante (Vaibhav Mangle) heads a theatre group. He is struggling hard to rehearse for a play with the members of his troupe (Devendra Pem, Geetanjali Kulkarni and Ritika Shrotri). Vaidya Buwa (Sunil Abhyankar) and Bhaskar (Pranav Raorane), who are also a part of the theatre group, have made a bomb to blow up Britishers.

The name of Karsandas Mulji isn’t heard often when one speaks of Indian social reformers that were active during the British Era. Filmmaker Siddharth P Malhotra’s Maharaj will perhaps make him a talking point to some extent as the film is based on his heroics in a bygone era. Produced by Yash Raj Films, Maharaj, which is streaming on Netflix, is based on the book of the same name written by Saurabh Shah in 2013. It narrates the story of Karsandas’ fight against an evil priest. The story starts off in a village in Gujarat in the 1820s where Karsandas, as a kid, questions everything, especially religious practices. He is sent to Bombay to his uncle’s place after he grows up (Junaid Khan). Karsan’s critical and revolutionary mind makes him a fearless journalist and a social reformer. He regularly writes about the evil social practices in Dadabhai Naoroji’s (Sunil Gupta) newspaper.

A lot of indie films are based on unexpected journeys that bring about a change in the film’s character(s) and provide a heartwarming message in the end. Director, actor and producer Vinod Rawat’s Pushtaini is also one such film but it succeeds in standing apart due to quite a few reasons. The story revolves around Bhupinder Rawat aka Bhuppi (Vinod Rawat). He is a struggling actor in Mumbai, who has just landed a role in a film starring the famous actor Ankur Bhatia (Rajkummar Rao) for a small sum. If this wasn’t enough, his friend (?) Sumit (Nitin Goel) shows him a video of his sex scandal that happened while he was drunk recently. Bhuppi has no idea of him indulging in such an act. But now Sumit asks for Rs 8 lakhs from him, else he threatens to make the video viral.