Imagine then, for a moment, not the darkness of the cinema so much as the darkness of the king and queen’s pillared hall, where guests are gathered for feasting and for telling stories. Against the flickering fire, the bard strikes up with his harp and starts to sing, performing tales of adventure and loss, return… Read More ‘More postmodern than ancient’: why the Odyssey is everywhere, from Oz to Westeros
Sutlej’s message is that a ‘cash-for-kill’ does not eliminate militancy, it end up killing innocents and spreading militancy. It makes criminals out of security force personnel Bharat Bhushan The allure of banned films often achieves the opposite of its intent. That is precisely what is happening with Satluj, pulled down by the government after 48 hours after it released… Read More The Forbidden View: ‘Satluj’ chases truth of Punjab’s bounty killings
SHARMISTHA SHIVHARE – Published: 26 Jun 2026 On 14 June 2026, a Dalit man was killed, allegedly for refusing to massage a coworker’s feet, in Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh. The setting of the crime scene was an informal get-together of four coworkers at one of the coworker’s residences in Civil lines. On refusing to massage his coworkers… Read More Lalitpur Killing Shows Caste Violence Is Sustained Through Everyday Humiliation
Anbarasan Ethirajan When pictures of Madhar Badhurudeen, campaigning in the recent assembly elections in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state, emerged on social media, few thought he would stand a chance. Badhurudeen belongs to the political party Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), headed by film star-turned-politician Chandrasekhar Joseph Vijay, popularly called Thalapathy (Commander) Vijay. He contested from the… Read More How social media turned Indian film star Vijay into a political force / Podcast: Making sense of TVK’s victory: Why and how did Vijay win?
NB: Our RSS/BJP rulers, who trumpet their greatness to the whole world, who have given us a VishwaGuru leader; do not want us to hear the last voice of a six year old Palestinian girl, pleading for help, murdered by a genocidal regime to which they have now come to owe allegiance. By so doing,… Read More Filmmakers, Activists, Israelis, Indians Condemn ‘Unlawful’ Ban on ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’
Epstein wasn’t selling girls’ bodies, he was selling the experience of impunity. The end product was not the sexual act, but the assurance that there would be no consequences. That’s the supreme commodity in capitalism. The right to transgress without punishment. FULL text translated from Spanish original: “The comparison being made of Pasolini’s Salò film… Read More Epstein, impunity and collective power
DANIEL A. MÉTRAUX Tora! Tora! Tora! provides a powerful visual image of the Pearl Harbor crisis. We are given a highly unique presence in Tokyo as the Japanese plan their mode of attack, but unfortunately, the movie’s attention is focused almost exclusively on the attack on Pearl Harbor. The truth is that Pearl Harbor was only… Read More Tora! Tora! Tora!
Once humiliation is naturalised as a civilisational condition, violence no longer appears as aggression but as rectification. Anubhav Singh Cinema has never merely reflected political life; it has functioned as one of its most efficient laboratories. From its earliest mass forms, cinema has been a technology for organising affect, disciplining perception, and training populations to… Read More How Hindi Cinema is Preparing India for Violence
A new film by Nan Goldin: WATCH THE VIDEO: Gaza → For over five decades, the photographer Nan Goldin has been creating unforgettable images that traffic in the poetics of the personal. Friends, lovers and ambiguous others star in her intimate and yet operatic diaries of love, loss and longing. More than any other artist of her stature,… Read More Gaza: Scenes from the destruction of a people
Anusha Rizvi’s The Great Shamsuddin Family is billed as a comedy. So why does it leave you unsettled? Apoorvanand Dolly Ahluwalia (Asiya) and Farida Jalal (Akko) in a still from the movie. Set within one house, and one day, the film maps how personal choices—marriage, migration, belief—are influenced by a wider climate of suspicion. If you wish… Read More Laughing carefully
