Hindi
‘Margarita With A Straw’: Limited appeal
MUMBAI: Margarita With A Straw is one of the five projects chosen in the Work In Progress Lab section of the Film Bazaar 2013.
This can be called a personal film in the sense that it is the story of an individual who is very talented but physically challenged. And unlike My Name Is Khan, it does not have an agenda or a depiction of heroics of a fictional character who suffers from autism. This film is more real and true to life. Its protagonist’s character has a close resemblance to the American stand-up comedian and actress, Geri Jewell, who has cerebral palsy and later discovers that she is lesbian.
Kalki Koechlin suffers from cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound. She can’t stand on her feet nor are her hands under her total control. She just about manages to make her words discernible. But she is intelligent and talented. In her mid-teens, she also has urges like all normal people. At home and at college in Delhi University where she studies, her life is made easier and happier by her friends and the caring family, especially her mother, Revathi, for whom Kalki has to be treated like a child all her life.
Her friends in college treat her as they would any normal fellow collegian. She is part of her college band and their star lyric writer. But it is that age when Kalki’s sexual urges start working on her. She starts with watching porn and later indulging in self-gratification and then is bold enough to take another wheelchair bound friend to a secluded college corner for a huge smooch. She has no inhibitions and, with her college friend, even goes shopping for a vibrator.
Everybody around Kalki has made her feel normal. She chats with them late at night and falls in love with one of her band members. But she is soon brought down to earth and shown her place when she is told that her college won the first prize at a music competition because the judges tweaked the decision in their favour because a physically challenged Kalki had written the words. Later, when she declares her love to her band member, he does not acknowledge it.
But, Kalki’s disillusion with the world around her doesn’t last long as her admission to New York University is confirmed. Hers is a mixed marriage family, a Maharashtrian Revathi married to a Sikh and living in Delhi. The father is docile and mother’s word is the last. Kalki gets her way.
New York is an all new world to Kalki where she discovers herself. The fact that she is an intelligent student despite her drawbacks remains but what is more important to her, her sexual leanings, are revealed to her. Here she meets a blind girl, Sayani Gupta, an offspring of a Bengali-Pakistani parentage, and a lesbian. Sayani has an inherent instinct and feels the sexual urges of Kalki and soon initiates her into her kind of sex: lesbian love. Kalki finally learns of her orientation and true love. It is a match made out of need and belonging.
Soon Kalki returns home on a vacation, with Sayani tagging along. It is time to confide in her mother, who is shattered to know what her daughter is up to. But, Revathi is counting her days and she must come to terms with her daughter’s choice. After all, what she wants is her daughter’s happiness.
But, soon, Kalki’s grim life catches up with her as Revathi gives into a sickness and Sayani leaves her. She is back to her old friends.
This is a tricky and brave subject and the scripting is taut. Direction by Shonali Bose is excellent. The songs are purely situational. Dialogue is true to the script. Cinematography is complementary. This is a Kalki vehicle all the way and, despite some discrepancies in her movements and manners of a challenged person, she excels and makes a strong claim for some awards. Sayani Gupta provides a perfect foil. Revathi, the seasoned artiste that she is, underplays effectively. Rest of the actors are good too because of a good casting.
Margarita With A Straw is a film purely meant for the discerning audience in India and for the festival circuit.
Producers: Shonali Bose, Nilesh Maniyar.
Director: Shonali Bose.
Cast: Kalki Koechlin, Shonali Bose, Revathi.
‘Mr X’: Old wine in a new bottle
Mr X is a fantasy film that everybody from a child to a grown up would identify with. The film was made by Nanabhai Bhatt in 1957 and has been made again quite a few times again ever since. This time, the difference is that, Nanabhai Bhatt’s son, Mukesh Bhatt, attempts to make it.
The last film one remembers abiout a man going invisible, is Mr India with Anil Kapoor playing the invisible hero. The latest Mr X stands up to none of the earlier versions.
Emraan Hashmi is an ace officer in an anti-terror outfit and is in love with his colleague, Amyra Dastur, also a top-rated officer. The romance is blooming but on one of the operations, where the duo along with their team is out to rescue a bus load of passengers taken hostage by a terrorist, Emraan risks his life to save the hostages while a bomb is ticking. This has shaken up Amyra who suggests that they had better part since Emraan could have killed himself in the process.
The lovers’ tiff does not last as Emraan soon proposes marriage using a plastic bottle neck ring. Sure, it would be replaced by a real ring the next day. The occasion calls for a song. That done, the couple fix their marriage date.
Though both are on leave from their jobs, one day before the marriage, they are assigned an important mission. The Chief Minister is due to give a speech at a hotel hall where a terrorist is hiding on the fourth floor preparing to assasinate him. Amyra is supposed to hear the conversation being taped by her colleagues in the next room and Emraan is supposed to look after the safety of the CM.
Emraan soon realises that he has been trapped. The CM is going to be shot and Emraan has to do it; Amyra is at a gunpoint. Either he can save her or the CM. The deed is done in view of the audience and the media, shooting the incident live. The perpetrators are his own people and they can’t let Emraan stay alive to tell the story. Emraan is taken to a deserted building, which is blown up along with him.
Emraan has survived though his body is fully singed and hair gone. Someone whom Emraan had helped returns the favour by taking him to his sister, who is a scientist. Emraan’s body has been affected by atomic reaction and can only be saved by an antidote the lab is working on. It is untested but Emraan is willing to take the risk. The potion cures his burns but makes him turn invisible in the dark though he can be seen in lit areas.
The stage is set for revenge. Emraan changes his name to Mr X who can’t be seen and starts with killing one of the three men who trapped him.
Mr X is the poorest of all the Mr X films. The script is insipid. The first half is spent on romance and is boringly slow. The second, half when excitement is supposed to begin, is grossly predictable. There is no thrill at any time. While such a film would be expected to have some fun for children, this has none. Songs have no appeal though background score is good. Heavy editing could have helped. 3D effect does not help much as it is forced.
With the script not holding much promise, writer-director Vikram Bhatt can do little to salvage the film. There is no scope for performance nor do any of the three main artistes, Emraan, Amyra and Arunoday try to, though Amyra lands some freshness with her presence. The end has been kept open for a sequel but that seems unlikely.
Mr X lacks in major aspects of an entertainer. The film has had a below par opening and promises no prospects of improving.
Producer: Mukesh Bhatt.
Director: Vikram Bhatt.
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Amyra Dastur, Arunoday Singh.
Films winning a National Awards are often mired in controversy. Not everyone is happy with the choice. In the case of this year’s Best Film award winner, Court, there seems to be total consensus of the jury and audience alike. Court has already made its mark in the international festival circuit, being honoured at the 71st Venice International Film Festival and having won many more awards thereafter. Though this is a fictional film, it comes across as a very real life drama.
A court room drama, this film is very different from all court room dramas and sequences seen so far in Indian films. It is more about how the police functions and how the archaic British era laws are implemented (while the newly enacted laws have no implementation). It is about how the cops interpret the laws and consign a person to custody and frame charges around the set laws with no inclination to build a case around it.
The film revolves around a person from the scheduled caste and not even the police (in Mumbai) seem to care to go deeply into the case. The police thinks its job is over as soon as the case is handed over to the court. The public prosecutor is in a hurry for the alleged criminal to be put behind bars for 20 years so that the case does not linger, justice notwithstanding.
Vira Sathidar is a shahir, a Marathi folk singer whose forte is to present songs that evoke deprived masses’ feelings and prod them to rise and do something. He is an on the spot singer who starts singing and the crowds gather around him when he starts.
One day, the police pick him up for inciting a Mumbai sewer worker to commit suicide through a song he sang outside his chawl. The song allegedly provokes all sewer workers to commit suicide. The fact that many a sewer worker die in Mumbai gutters while cleaning because they are contracted labourers, are poorly paid and provided no safety equipment, does not matter to the police nor to the court. They follow the Penal Code. In this case, a law laid down by the British Raj in 19thcentury. While the law has always been about the logic of the time, logic never finds a place in the deliverance of justice by law.
Vira is lucky to get a lawyer, a Gujarati, Vivek Gomber, who metes out free service through his NGO for such people. He takes up Vira’s case. He is faced with a by-the-book public prosecutor, Geetanjali Kulkarni, who only quotes laws and wants to be done with the case soon as she can; her idea of ending a case is to deliver the accused to a jail. To Vivek’s credit, he is never frustrated nor exasperated by Geetanjali’s ways.
The case lingers on and on as it happens in Indian courts. The judge, Pradeep Joshi, also goes by the book and does not think the accused deserves bail, so what if he is a senior citizen. The police regularly fails to produce witnesses.
After years of contesting, Omber finally manages to get a bail for his client. The surety is Rs 1 lakh, which even the judge knows this poet and singer can’t manage but which his benevolent lawyer arranges. Vira, by now, is a sick man suffering from multiple ailments.
Within a few days of his bail, the police visit him again and arrest him on another charge.
Court is a grim film when in court room scenes. But the script and direction have made sure it does not remain all grim. The film is about juxtapositions all the way: between the law and the outside world, between the way of life of Maharashtrian schedule caste and literate Maharashtrians, between Maharashtrian and Gujaratis, and between lawyers and government prosecutors deciphering the same laws.
Though the script is well written, the film takes too much footage to narrate it. Surely, some leisurely shot portions can be edited for better effect. Though Chaitanya Tamhane, may have been indulgent at times, this is a triumph for him as a first-time feature film director. The Marathi inspirational songs are exactly that: inspiring. What Tamhane has done is to bring in families of the lawyer, Omber, as well as the prosecutor, Geetanjali, and these aspects prove to be respites after court scenes rather than distractions. His account of the afterhours of a Marathi family taking to a typical thali restaurant followed by a Ravindra Natya Mandir Marathi drama on an off day compared to the Gujarati lawye’s visit to an upmarket South Mumbai thali joint makes a statement on their way of life. The film deals mainly in Marathi but has some major scenes in Gujarati, English and Hindi.
While Omber is excellent despite his faulty Gujarati, Geetanjali is fine as a mannequin-like public prosecutor. Vira excels despite limited footage. Pradeep as the judge sends you a message: avoid courts!
Watching Court is an experience worth having.
Producer: Vivek Gomber.
Director: Chaitanya Tamhane.
Cast: Vira Sathidar, Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Pradeep Joshi.
Hindi
GUEST COLUMN: Why film libraries & IPs are the new engines of growth
Unlocking value through catalogue strength and IP synergy
MUMBAI:In a media landscape defined by fragmentation, platform proliferation, and ever-evolving audience behavior, the economics of filmmaking are undergoing a fundamental shift. No longer confined to box office performance, a film’s true value is now measured across an extended lifecycle that spans digital platforms, syndication networks, and global markets. As content consumption becomes increasingly non-linear and algorithm-driven, film libraries and intellectual properties (IPs) are emerging as strategic assets, capable of delivering sustained, long-term returns. For Mohan Gopinath, head – bollywood business at Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd., this transformation signals a decisive move from hit-driven models to portfolio-led value creation. In this piece, Gopinath explores how legacy content, when intelligently repurposed and distributed, can unlock recurring revenue streams, why the interplay between catalogue and original IP is critical, and how media companies can build resilient, future-ready entertainment businesses.
For all these years, we thought that a film is successful if it performs well in theatres. There are opening weekend numbers, box office milestones, and distribution footprints that gave a good picture of how the movie has done commercially and also tell us about its cultural impact. However, there are multiple platforms today, always-on content ecosystem, which has caused a shift. Today, the theatrical performance is not the culmination of a film’s journey but merely the beginning of a much longer and more dynamic lifecycle.
Film libraries today are emerging as high-value, constantly evolving assets that deliver sustained returns well beyond initial release cycles. This becomes a point of great advantage for legacy content owners with diverse catalogues, to shape long-term business outcomes.
According to FICCI-EY, the media and entertainment industry of India achieved a valuation of Rs 2.78 trillion in 2025 which is expected to reach Rs 3.3 trillion by 2028 through a compound annual growth rate of approximately 7 per cent and digital media will bring in more than Rs 1 trillion to become the biggest sector which generates about 36 per cent of overall market revenues.
This shift is the expansion of distribution endpoints. We know how satellite television was once the primary secondary window but today, it coexists with YouTube, OTT platforms, Connected TV, and FAST channels. Each of these platforms caters to distinct audience demographics and consumption behaviors, helping content owners to obtain more value from the same asset across multiple formats.
For instance, films that had great reruns, now find continuous engagement across digital platforms. On YouTube, classic Hindi cinema continues to attract significant viewership, reaching audiences across generations and geographies with remarkable consistency. At Shemaroo Entertainment, this is reflected in our film library shaped over decades as part of a long association with Indian entertainment. From classics such as Amar Akbar Anthony to much-loved entertainers like Jab We Met, Welcome, Dhamaal, Phir Hera Pheri, Dhol, Golmaal, and Bhagam Bhag, many of these titles continue finding new audiences while retaining their place in popular memory. Their enduring appeal reflects how culturally resonant stories can continue creating value over time. Similarly, FAST channels have created curated, always-on environments where catalogue content can continue to thrive through star-led and genre-based programming.
This multi-platform approach has very well transformed films into long-tail IP assets which are capable of generating recurring revenue across advertising, subscription, and syndication models.
The evolution of audience behavior is equally important. Nowadays, it’s more important to find what’s more relative than what’s recent as viewers are more influenced by mood, memories, and algorithmic suggestions than by release schedules. Even if a movie was released decades ago, it can trend alongside a newly released movie, if surfaced in the right context. Thoughtful packaging, whether through festival-based playlists, actor-driven collections, or genre clusters, allows catalogue content to remain dynamic and continuously discoverable. Shemaroo Entertainment has built extensive film libraries over decades and its focus has mostly been on recontextualizing content for the consumption of newer environments. This process doesn’t just include digitization and restoration, but also re-packaging of films as per platforms.
Syndication itself has evolved into a key growth driver. In perspective, when looking at the domestic market, curated content packages continue to find strong demand across broadcast and digital platforms. Meanwhile, in the international market, especially in markets like Middle East, North America and Southeast Asia, the appetite for Indian content is opening up new monetization avenues. Here, the ability to package and position catalogue content effectively becomes as important as the content itself.
Importantly, the need to re-package catalogue content does not diminish the role of new content. In fact, originals and fresh IP are essential to sustaining the long-term value of a film library because they act as discovery engines that bring audiences into the ecosystem, while catalogue content drives depth, retention, and repeat engagement.
This interplay between the “new” and the “known” is what defines a robust content strategy today. While new films generate spikes in consumption, catalogue titles offer familiarity and comfort. These are factors that are increasingly valuable in an era of content abundance and decision fatigue. This is also shaping our strategy, drawing value from both a deep catalogue assets and a growing focus on original IPs to strengthen long-term audience engagement and build more predictable revenue streams.
There is growing recognition that long-term value in entertainment will be shaped not only by how intelligently existing content continues to live, travel and find relevance, but also by how consistently new stories are created to renew that ecosystem. In that sense, film libraries and original IP are not parallel bets, but reinforcing engines of growth. For media companies, the opportunity lies in making these two forces work together, because that is increasingly where more resilient and predictable businesses are being shaped.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
