The Great Shamsuddin Family

After weeks of shrill, strident films, The Great Shamshuddin Family offers the warmth of a quilt and the taste of ginger tea in a Delhi winter. Nearly 15 years after Peepli Live, Anusha Rizvi returns with a day-long glimpse into the life of a modern Indian Muslim family that is achingly human, steadfastly hopeful, and consistently humorous. Carrying tensions arising from interfaith relationships and generational grievances within its layers, the film gradually builds the tenuous relationship between the home and the world. From the passive aggression of liberals, the youthful presumptions, the manipulation of conservative but well-meaning elders, to the bitterness, the casual communal innuendos, and prejudices that we see around us, the film brings out the foreboding and the fears of social violence in our subconscious mind without pointing fingers.