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“Theatre,” the sophomore feature from Indian filmmaker Nishanth Kalidindi following his cult hit “Kadaseela Biriyani” (2021), will world premiere in International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Harbour section.

Set in the traditional urban center of former French colony Pondicherry in southern India, rather than its more commonly filmed spiritual township Auroville, the Tamil and Malayalam language film follows Das, a cowherd who leads a double life as an actor in a local theater company. When his past catches up with him through Guna, a former funeral drummer turned stage musician, tensions rise within the close-knit performing group under their inexperienced director’s drive for perfection.

“The film’s conception traces back to even before ‘Kadaseela Biriyani,'” Kalidindi told Variety. “I spent quite a while observing the lifestyles of the Indianostrum Theatre group in Pondicherry while they were creating pieces of theater. What stayed with me was how the director would interact...

Although quite early, it seems as if we might see a trend of Indian actioners taking place within trains, with “Seven Seas Seven Hills” being another we saw earlier this year. And if Ram's effort included some additional elements in order to enrich the context, in the case of Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, we have a genuine action movie, in a style that would definitely remind of Korean action movies. In order to achieve this effect, Indian action choreographer Parvez Shaikh joined hands with South Korean Se-Yeong Oh (Snowpiercer) in designing the sophisticated stunts, with the result being impressive.

Kill is screening at Indian Film Festival Los Angeles

The story, expectedly, is as thin as paper, or as “The Raid” one could say, only this time the protagonists move horizontally instead of vertically. Army commando Amrit boards a New Delhi-bound train with his best buddy from the Force Viresh, in...