समाचार

Year 2023. A woman in Jharkhand’s West Singbhum district was beaten to death on suspicions of being a witch. Same year in Odisha, a family was attacked in Ganjem district after several deaths in the village. The family was accused of practising witchcraft. Chattisgarh, 2022. A 50-year-old woman was murdered in Bastar after being labeled a witch. Similar cases of witch-hunting were reported from Purulia district in West Bengal in 2020. Despite laws being in place in several states for the prevention of witch hunting, it continues to be a part of the grim reality in rural India.

Dainee (2025), Nirjhar Mitra’s maiden web series for Hoichoi starring Mimi Chakraborty, is a tense survival thriller that sheds light on this horrifying practice. Through the story of two sisters, “Dainee” explores how women—often widows, single mothers, or those who dare to speak up—are branded as witches and brutally executed in several...

We tend to see India as a single country, no matter how complicated. But even geographically, it is a sub-continent, while the diversity of its social landscape reminds us that it should be seen as a complete civilization. And, where there is a whole civilization, there is a plenty of the axis of division: linguistic, religious, ethnic, class and caste. Sometimes it is quite a hard task to govern such a country and achieve some kind of balance in it.

Myth & Pieces review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative

The diversity also applies to the national cinema with different “schools” of it in various states. Coming from Kolkata, one might assume that “Myth and Pieces” (“Kalponik” in original), written and directed by Arka Mukhopadhyay, could be something along the lines of art house cinema. However, it is a mix of fairly conventional sub-genres of thriller, with investigative, political and even symbolic mystery angles,...

Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy's La Fee (The Fairy) will open this year's Directors' Fortnight on May 12 and Bouli Lanners's Les Géants (The Giants) will close it on May 22. Here's how the full lineup of 25 films pans out.

The Fairy. From MK2: "Dom works the night shift in a small hotel near the industrial sea port of Le Havre. One night, a woman arrives with no luggage and no shoes. Her name is Fiona. She tells Dom she is a fairy and grants him three wishes. Fiona makes two wishes come true, then mysteriously disappears. Dom, who by then has fallen in love with Fiona searches for her everywhere and eventually finds her. In the psychiatric hospital where she has been interned. The filmmakers behind the critically acclaimed Iceberg and Rumba are back to enchant the world."

Karim Ainouz's O abismo prateado.

Urszula Antoniak's Code Blue.