Afriti (2017) - Short Film

Director: Avishek Das

Notable Cast: Adrija Baul, Arijit Chatterji, Suman, Ankita Debnath, Sinjan Sarkar

The first ever Bengali language slasher from India is a big deal and taking on that first foray into a subgenre of horror, or anything really unexplored in a particular country's cinema, regardless of what type of infrastructure group it belongs to, is something that must meet a certain standard of high expectations from an unready and unprepared world of... well, world cinema lovers to flock to. Does taking claim, whether the literal first of its kind or not, live up to the hype? To a degree, but it is an effort that has a lot of heart which sadly lacks a very strong craft across the bored making Afriti an ultimately mixed effort.

Pink (2016)

Director: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury
Notable Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, Andrea Tariang, Angad Bedi

I went in to Pink with reserved expectations. I knew it was a film that would be serious and I had heard very high praise for Amitabh's performance as the lawyer working with the three young women involved in a violent incident. That being said, Indian cinema is something I am still new to and I think the number of good and great films that aren't goofy Bollywood affair coming from the region are new to the movie goers there. That aside, Pink is one powerful film and will without a doubt make it into my Top 10 of the Year list for 2016!

Miss Lovely (2012)

Director: Ashim Ahluwalia

Notable Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Niharika Singh, Menaka Lalwani, Anil George, Zeena Bhatia

The Duggal brothers produce very sleazy sexploitation during the 1980s in Bombay. The older brother, Vicky, played fiendishly by Anil George, has run into some trouble with a distributor and his relationship with his partner in the biz, and his younger brother, Sonu, played to chilling perfection by Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Gangs of Wasseypur), quickly becomes chaotic and destructive. The two sell their brotherliness quite well, and when things quickly become fractured between them, they keep it believable and intense the entire time.