52 Films by Women Vol 8. 20. Girls Will Be Girls (Director: Shuchi Talati)
Pictured : Sri ( Kesav Binoy Kiron , left), Anila ( Kani Kusruti , centre) and Mira ( Preeti Panigrahi , right) enjoy a meal in a scene from the drama, ' Girls Will Be Girls ', written and directed by Shuchi Talati . Still courtesy of Sundance Institute / LuxBox / Modern Films Indian mainstream cinema is highly conservative. Bollywood (that is, Indian studio) films highlight stars and spectacle rather than a film director’s personal vision. Bollywood has not yet experienced its 1960s moment when audiences rejected ‘factory setting’ entertainment in favour of something edgier and more realistic. India has produced auteur cinema, but it exists in parallel to Bollywood output. Directors such as Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen succeeded internationally but didn’t reshape Bollywood output in the way that directors such as John Frankenheimer, Sam Peckinpah, Sidney Lumet and Arthur Penn introduced a gritty, unpredictability to 1960s Hollywood films. India doesn’t lack cineaste film dire...