'We All Peddle Lies'

In a conversation with Subha J Rao, filmmaker Sudhir Mishra dissects the anatomy of Afwaah; the long lives of rumours; and what it means to make cinema with a conscience.

OVER the years, Sudhir Mishra has written and made innumerable films — Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin, Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Yeh Saali Zindagi, among others — that marry politics and the dark underbelly of society, films that speak of lofty ideals and films that aspire for home; almost all of them deal sensitively with the human condition. His latest, Afwaah (Rumour), is an incisive film set in the Rajasthani hinterland where caste pride and misogyny rule. In an interview, Mishra speaks about staying contemporary with his creations and how each one of them has stood the test of time.

Read Here

'I Always Have A Back-Up Plan'

With 2018, his film on the Kerala floods, in Malayalam cinema's 100-crore club, director Jude Anthany Joseph talks to Neelima Menon about how his team pulled off the feat.

THERE'S an anecdote about filmmaker Jude Anthany Joseph that’s fondly shared by his actors. After the interval of the FDFS of his debut film, Ohm Shanthi Oshana (2014), a jubilant Jude reportedly told his producer to keep a 100-day poster for it ready. He had that same disarming confidence during the making of 2018 as well.

If a charming rom-com like Ohm Shanti Oshana debunked a lot of the stereotypes associated with teenagers and women on celluloid, two years later, Jude made a film with a cranky elderly woman as the protagonist (Oru Muthassi Gadha). In Saras, he had a young aspiring filmmaker decide she never wanted to have children.

Jude’s films always have interesting female characters, and address an issue with the minimum of fuss. Not all of these experiments have worked. In that sense, his big-budget spectacle 2018, based on the devastating Kerala floods, is way out of his comfort zone. However, those who have seen the film vouch for the emotional layers they’ve always come to expect from Jude’s films. As 2018 joined the 100-crore club in Malayalam cinema, we caught up with the director for a quick chat.

Read Here

Revathi: 'It Is Inborn In Me To Tell Stories'

“WHEN YOUNGER STARS SAY ‘I would have given a limb to be Divya from Mouna Ragam’, I tell them Divya was mine! The character was created for me and no one else!” laughs actress Revathi referring to one of her most iconic roles on screen, in Mani Ratnam’s tale of love and redemption, that released in 1986 and remains a cult classic.

In a career spanning four decades, the multi-dimensional actress often portrayed the strong independent woman in movies from the South (and a handful in Hindi) during the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Be it as a student who falls in love with her dance instructor in Punnagai Mannan; the mother of a disabled child in another Ratnam classic, Anjali; Ram Gopal Varma’s horror noir Ratri; the dutiful wife in Thevar Magan or Singeetam Srinivasa Rao’s satire Magalir Mattum, there is no role the actress hasn’t performed to perfection.

— MALLIK THATIPALLI

Read Here

Transforming From Made In Heaven's Tara Khanna To Ponniyin Selvan's Princess Vanathi

'I'M a girl from Vizag who has no connection whatsoever with the film world. So every opportunity I get, every dream I fulfill, and every room I walk into that is filled with incredible people — it makes me go ‘wow!’. I’m just very grateful for everything, that’s all. It makes me wonder why did I think this to be such a farfetched dream?”

Read Sobhita Dhulipala's interview with Mallik Thatipalli for OTTplay.

OUR OTHER NEWSLETTERS

The one newsletter you need to decide what to watch on any given day. Our editors pick a show, movie, or theme for you from everything that’s streaming on OTT.

This weekly newsletter compiles a list of the latest (and most important) reviews from OTTplay so you can figure what to watch or ditch over the weekend ahead.

In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an
hour on this.