Abhro Banerjee

Joram opens with an idyllic glimpse of rural young love in Jharkhand, Eastern India, and jarringly jumps forward to gritty labourer life in Mumbai. Some years after leaving the tribal village, Dasru and Vaano are working and sleeping at a construction site with their infant daughter, Joram, clinging to their backs. The thriller unravels through flashbacks, portraying the promise of big-city successes shattered by the realities of modernity and power.

Against the backdrop of Partition, independent India’s first hockey team defeats England, their erstwhile coloniser, to win the Gold at the 1948 London Olympics. Six decades later, when Nandy Singh, a member of this iconic team suffers a stroke, his tenacious struggle to recover, inspires his daughter to retrace his journey. Using archival footage and interviews with teammates, she reveals lives shaped by the Gold, and by Partition that made them refugees. Revealed also is a friend in Pakistan never spoken of before. Her journey in search of him morphs into a quest for the lost ‘watan’ (homeland).

Manik is a lonely middle-aged man who lives with his father, but with whom he has no contact. Instead, his life consists of taking care of his plants and ants, plus a spider and a lizard. But then a change happens in the man’s dull life – he notices a cloud in the sky that seems to follow him all the time. Life takes on a new, previously unknown value for him. Is it friendship or perhaps love?

Offers us glimpses of lives that are lived on their own terms and in such living mark their resistance against stifling social norms that threaten to homogenise diversity. A celebration of love and togetherness with a difference; it is a celebration of the struggles to live those differences.

They set off, looking for work in far-off places, but disappeared along the way. Inspired by Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s “birha” poetry, the film traces the longing on both sides: on the part of those who are missing, and those that wait for them to return.

A teenage British Kashmiri, Noor, retraces her roots. She is joined by Majid, a local Kashmiri boy who is more smitten by her exotic foreignness than her obsession to unravel the mysteries of their disappeared fathers.

February, 2011. In a small village of West Bengal - Swapna and Shucheta - two young women in love with each other - took their own lives, leaving a letter claiming love, life, recognition... a letter challenging violence, hate, invisibilisation. No one from their families came to claim their dead bodies. They died as they dared to love. Their bodies remained unclaimed by family and society. What if they were not dead but alive today? Like many other couples, Aparna-Kajlee from Bongaaon, Moyna-Bandana from Purulia... They died for love but still live among us. What if Swapna and Shucheta ran away and survived? How would their life together look like and their desire? If you dare Desire, is a film of possibilities. Beyond the domination of patriarchy and hetero-normativity, the women in love resist with their bodies, with their hearts. They live many lives. They die many deaths. They resist and they dream. In the daily struggles of a far-away village. In the dark glitters of a big city.

This documentary follows eight women in India who struggle with self-confidence and society's expectations but rediscover themselves through running

Like Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbour, on a smaller but equally poignant scale, 3000 members of India's tiny Chinese community were incarcerated in an old POW camp for up to 4 years in the aftermath of the India-China war of 1962. Even children, expectant mothers and the elderly were not spared. Most people don't know about this tragic episode. There is no acknowledgment or apology either from the government to date. And yet, among those who suffered, the love for India and things Indian remain alongside the pain and hurt. It's a story that reminds us that history has a way of repeating itself. Again and again.

When a corrupt judicial system lets a drunken driver off scott-free, four gym friends become vigilantes to avenge the death of their trainer.

…and the unclaimed delves into the aftermath of Swapna and Shucheta’s deaths, as well as the social conditions that led to their choice. “The unclaimed” refers both to the fact that neither of their families came forward to claim their bodies, but also to the tenuous state of existence of queer and trans folks in India. Interviews with Swapna and Shucheta’s families and neighbours are interspersed with the stories of ordinary Indian queer and trans people, as well as activists and advocates, all of whom are dealing with their own experiences of the label “unclaimed”, while fiercely fighting for their rights to live and love.

…and the unclaimed delves into the aftermath of Swapna and Shucheta’s deaths, as well as the social conditions that led to their choice. “The unclaimed” refers both to the fact that neither of their families came forward to claim their bodies, but also to the tenuous state of existence of queer and trans folks in India. Interviews with Swapna and Shucheta’s families and neighbours are interspersed with the stories of ordinary Indian queer and trans people, as well as activists and advocates, all of whom are dealing with their own experiences of the label “unclaimed”, while fiercely fighting for their rights to live and love.