Dead wild boars and gun-toting humans floating down a zip line from inside a forest to a bungalow, dinner conversations replete with tall tales of hunting and backhanded compliments, residents for whom the gun is the one, and probably only, thing that matters in their lives — this is the world in which Aashiq Abu’s Rifle Club is set. It is a closed world with strict honour codes, which doesn’t bar the characters from mercilessly lampooning the incompetence of someone else in the club. And, almost all of them belong to the same family.

A house, lived in for years, bulldozed by the Israeli military in front of its inhabitants, leaving behind a pile of tangible memories under the rubble. A youth resisting the burning down of an Olive orchard shot down by a settler with practised ease and nonchalance, just as if it were the most normal thing to do. Soldiers violently barging into every single home in a village in search of an Israeli military man who was abducted.

Sometimes, the most gentle turns in a film can create a considerable emotional impact on the viewer. The filmmaker need not necessarily move a mountain to achieve that. Belgian filmmaker Anthony Schatteman’s Young Hearts, with its fresh take on teenage gay romance, is filled with several such moments that flow organically one after the other. Being screened in the World Cinema section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), this rather small film about young people has gained appreciation amid a flurry of bigger films boasting wider festival play.

The spark that initiates a work of art can come from anywhere. For Sivaranjini J., it came from the unusual sight of a rooster sitting inside a beauty parlour near her home in Angamaly. Victoria, her debut film which was screened at the Malayalam Cinema Today section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala on Saturday, is set almost entirely a beauty parlour.

While watching Pierce, the debut feature of former Singapore national fencer Nelicia Low, one would assume that the sport inspired the film, for fencing is at the very centre of the narrative which deals with brotherly affection and psychopathic tendencies. The trademark moves in the sport, which one character defines as chess played with swords, also parallels the behaviour of the characters in the film, screened in the world cinema section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) on Saturday (December 14, 2024).

Lijin Jose’s film Her is an anthology, but it is not strictly one. No clear demarcations exist between the five films in the collection, with one segment segueing smoothly into the next, although the characters and narratives are different. However, only two of the films are directly connected, while the rest have characters from other films popping in at some point to connect it all.

For prying eyes, the most innocuous action might seem suspicious. Priyadarshini (Nazriya Nazim) is the one with a bit of nosy behaviour in the neighbourhood in which Sookshmadarshini is set. At times, she almost behaves like the kind of neighbour that no one would ever wish to have. We get an interesting character detail that she is a microbiology graduate, for whom a Sookshmadarshini (microscope) is a part of her trade. Just that her lens is trained more on her neighbour, rather than microbes.

If there exists a parallel world where losers are guaranteed to find salvation, Girish A.D’s characters would probably be the rulers of that world. Down and out protagonists have been a common factor in all his films till date, be it Thanneer Mathan Dinangal or Super Sharanya or Premalu. His latest outing I Am Kathalan is no different, but just as always, he brings the same underlying theme in a different packaging.

When a gruesome murder happens in broad daylight at the beginning of a film, one expects the murder to be the major event around which everything else will revolve. But Joju George’s Pani really takes off from a smaller fight that Don (Sagar Surya) and Siju (V.P.Junaiz), the two murderers, get involved in at a supermarket later in the day.

Among all the flaws a writer can imagine for their protagonist, an unreliable memory throws up quite a few fascinating possibilities. In Bougainvillea, Reethu (Jyothirmayi) is almost always unsure of anything that happens right in front of her eyes. For a fairly good period, we are also caught in a similar dilemma — as to whether what we are seeing through her eyes is for real; whether she has painted a Sunflower or yet another Bougainvillea.