| 5 Movies Set
Fire (1996) Country: India Language: English Year: 1996 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description The film is set in contemporary Delhi, India, in the household of a joint family which runs a fast-food and video business in the ground floor of their two-story home. The protagonists are the two daughters-in-law, both of whom have joined the family by marriage: Sita (Nandita Das), who is newly wed to the younger son Jatin (Javed Jaffrey); and Radha (Shabana Azmi), who has been married to the elder son Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) for 15 years. Both couples are unhappy. Jatin, who feels he has been pressured into marriage by the family, neglects Sita and continues to see his Chinese girlfriend. Ashok has chosen to become a tapasvin (an ascetic) after discovering that Radha is infertile, and has been using her to test his resolve in celibacy for 13 years. The two women turn to each other for solace and become lovers. Tipped off by a servant, Ashok discovers them in bed together. Sita leaves, while Radha, who wishes to explain matters to Ashok, promises to meet her outside to start a new life together. In the confrontation that follows, Radha's sari catches fire from the kitchen stove and Ashok abandons her in flames. In the final scene, the two women are reunited.
Cast: Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Javed Jaffrey, Karishma Jhalani, Ramanjeet Kaur, Dilip Mehta, Vinay Pathak, Ranjit Chowdhry, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Alice Poon, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Avijit Dutt | | Director: Deepa Mehta Music Director: A R Rahman
| | 1947 Earth (1998) Country: India Language: Hindi, English Year: 1998 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama, Romance
Description The year 1947, the city Lahore, in what was then India and what is now Pakistan. Lenny (Maia Sethna), an eight year old Parsi girl is one of the daily visitors to the Queen's Gardens with her comely and shapely nanny Shanta (Nandita Das), with the kind of curves and smiles that draw numerous male admirers. Lenny basks in the warmth of her favorite people. A warm, comfortable world. A world about to be shattered by vicious arguments, rumors and hatred. Angry Hindus storm through Lahore one day, angry Muslims the next. Then the killings begin. From the rooftop of her house Lenny sees Hindus and Sikhs killing Muslims; Muslims burning Hindus and Sikhs alive. Trains arrive with only corpses as passengers. Through this all, she is also privy to the blossoming love affair between the beautiful Shanta and Hasan (Rahul Khanna) the masseur whose is the only voice of sanity in the madness around. And then there is the once charming Ice Candy Man, Dil Nawaz (Aamir Khan) who has a thing for Shanta and who now roams the streets of Lahore with vengeance on his mind. The demonic dance of greed and desire wearing the garb of religion and nationalism, trampling on innocence, the price of making one country into two nations.
Cast: Aamir Khan, Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna, Kitu Gidwani, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Gulshan Grover, Raghuvir Yadav, Maia Sethna, Arif Zakaria, Mohini Mathur, Lauren Walker, Pavan Malhotra, Rajendra Kumar, Javed Jaffrey | | Director: Deepa Mehta Music Director: A R Rahman
| | Before the Rains (2007) Country: India Language: English Year: 2007 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama, Romance
Description Malayalam-speaking T.K. Neelan (Rahul Bose), Rajat (Lal), Manas and his sister, Sajani (Nandita Das), live in Kalpetta Township in Kerala, India, during the British Raj. As children they used to play in the woods where Manas and T.K. used to play Bhagwan Shri Ram and Shri Lakshman respectively, and rescue Sita (Sajani) from Lord Ravan's (Rajat) clutches. Now the year is 1937, all are grown up, while Manas (Indrajith) is a laborer, Sajani is married to Rajat, and T.K. works for his British employer, Henry Moore, who lives there with his wife, Laura, and their son, Peter. Sajani is also employed as a maidservant in the Moore household. T.K.'s headmaster asks him to join the freedom movement and ask the British to quit India, but T.K. feels that India has made a lot of progress under the British rule and they should continue with this partnership. His headmaster cautions him that partnership is only between equals, but T.K. disregards this, and it is this attitude that will compel him to re-examine his way of thinking when he finds out that Henry is having a steamy affair with Sajani.
Cast: Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Jennifer Ehle, John Standing, Leopold Benedict, Dr Ambikathmajan, Lakshmi Krishnamurthy, Lal Paul, Thilakan, Ejji K Umamahesh, Linus Roache | | Director: Santosh Sivan Music Director: Mark Kilian
| | Firaaq (2009) Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 2009 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description Firaaq is an Urdu word that means both separation and quest. Set in the aftermath of a communal carnage, Firaaq, is a work of fiction based on a thousand stories. It is an ensemble film that takes place over a 24 hour period, a month after the worst of the violence is over. The film traces the emotional journeys of 'ordinary people' - some who were victims, some perpetrators and some who watched silently. Firaaq explores their relationships as they experience many fierce and delicate emotions of fear and prejudice, guilt and revenge, trust and betrayal and a loss of innocence that wounds the soul forever. Violence truly spares nobody. Yet in the midst of all this madness, some still sing hopeful songs for better times.
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Shahana Goswami, Sanjay Suri, Tisca Chopra, Deepti Naval, Paresh Rawal, Raghuvir Yadav, Masood Akhtar, Honey Chhaya, Dilip Joshi, Rahul Singh, Nawazuddin Siddiqui | | Director: Nandita Das Music Director: Rajat Dholakia, Piyush Kanojia
| | Ramchand Pakistani (2008) Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 2008 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description Ramchand Pakistani is derived from a true story concerning the accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period (June 2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the 'untouchable' (Dalit) caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the lives of a woman, a man, and their son.
The singular theme of the film is how a child from Pakistan aged eight years learns to cope with the trauma of forced separation from his mother while being held prisoner, along with his father in the jail of a country i.e. India, which is hostile to his own, while on the other side of the border, the wife-mother, devastated by their sudden disappearance builds a new chapter of her life, by her solitary struggle for sheer survival.
The film portrays the lives of a family that is at the bottom of a discriminatory religious ladder and an insensitive social system, which is nevertheless tolerant, inclusive and pluralist. The irony is compounded by the fact that such a family becomes hostage to the acrimonious political relationship between two neighbor-states poised on the brink of war.
Cast: Nandita Das, Rashid Farooqi, Maria Wasti, Shaood Alvi, Syed Fazal Hussain, Nouman Ijaz, Adarsh Ayaz, Atif Badar, Karim Bux Baloch, Salim Mairaj, Farooq Pareo, Adnan Shah, Zhalay Sharhadi | | Director: Mehreen Jabbar Music Director: Debajyoti Mishra
| | | Format: DVD Label: Eagle Catalog No: EDVD N 4798 DVD Region: All Region No Of Disks: 5 Subtitles: English Video: NTSC | | | | Additional Notes # Fire Without Subtitle | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
