Court (film)
| Court | |
|---|---|
_POSTER.jpg)
International poster for the film
| |
| Directed by | Chaitanya Tamhane |
| Produced by | Vivek Gomber |
| Written by | Chaitanya Tamhane |
| Starring | Vira Sathidar Vivek Gomber Geetanjali Kulkarni Pradeep Joshi Usha Bane Shirish Pawar |
| Music by | Sambhaji Bhagat |
| Cinematography | Mrinal Desai |
| Edited by | Rikhav Desai |
Production
company |
Zoo Entertainment Pvt Ltd
|
| Distributed by | Artscope - Memento Films (World sales) Zeitgeist Films (United States) |
Running time
| 116 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Marathi Hindi Gujarati English |
Court is a 2015 Indian courtroom drama film, written and directed by Chaitanya Tamhane, in his directorial debut. Featuring a cast of newcomers, the film examines the Indian legal system through the trial of an aging folk singer in a lower court in Mumbai.
Court premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2014,[1] where it won the Best Film in the Horizons category and the Luigi De Laurentiis (Lion Of The Future) award for Tamhane.[2] Jay Weissberg ofVariety described the film as "an impressive debut that flays alive India’s judicial system thanks to an intelligent, superbly understated script."[3] The film went on to win 18 other awards at film festivals, including honours at theMumbai, Vienna, Antalya, and Singapore film festivals.[4] In 2015, the film won the Best Feature Film award at the 62nd National Film Awards.[5][6]
Court theatrically released in India on 17 April 2015.[7]
Cast[edit]
- Vira Sathidar as Narayan Kamble
- Vivek Gomber as Vinay Vora
- Geetanjali Kulkarni as public prosecutor Nutan
- Pradeep Joshi as Judge Sadavarte
- Usha Bane as Sharmila Pawar
- Shirish Pawar as Subodh
Development and production[edit]
The idea for the film occurred to Tamhane in 2011, after he had just finished travelling to festivals with his debut short film, Six Strands. He thought about the idea of a realistic courtroom drama in an Indian setting and at the insistence of his friend Vivek Gomber, an actor he had previously worked with, he set about writing the script.
In an interview to ScreenDaily, he said, "I never imagined I would tackle a courtroom drama, as I’m not a big fan of genre films. But when I came across the idea of a realistic trial unfolding in a lower court of Mumbai, it made me curious. It felt like the complete opposite of what I, as an audience, would expect from a courtroom film; the lawyers were not good orators, the documents were misplaced, the arguments were technical and redundant. I was amused by this setting, and decided to probe further."[8]
He started researching and interviewing people, a process that went on for a year, utilising notes, free-association essays, video, and picture references. Pre-production involved six months of script research, six months of casting, and eight months of location recce. The crew was largely made up of people working on their first fictional feature film. The cast largely included non-professional actors, including bank employees, government employees, and teachers.[9]
In an interview to Bikas Mishra of Indian indie film website DearCinema.com, Tamhane said, "Everybody in the crew was involved in intensive pre-production which included watching documentaries like Jai Bhim Comrade, touching base with activists and political groups, going to their houses and clicking pictures of the props in their houses, attending events with them etc. We created a database of colours, props, costumes and faces which made it easy for us to be closer to the essence of the subject, not necessarily the reality."[10]
The film then took three years to make and was produced by Gomber, who also plays the defence lawyer Vinay Vora in the film, with assistance from the Hubert Bals Fund of International Film Festival Rotterdam.[11]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
International[edit]
Court has received largely positive reviews in the international film festival circuit. In his Venice review, Variety's Weissberg further wrote: "Outdated, elephantine courts are an easy target, yet it’s the way Tamhane coolly exposes the flaws that renders the film so powerful, making clear that the problem isn’t simply with what’s on the books, but also with the people pedantically interpreting them."[12] Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film at Antalya, stating: "Mumbai's Chaitanya Tamhane emerges as one of the world's most accomplished and promising film-makers under 30 with his quietly steely legal drama Court, a bluntly-titled chronicle of politically-motivated injustice."[13] In French publication Le Monde, Jacques Mandelbaum called Court "a major movie on the worrying state of freedom of speech in the Indian democracy" and lauded the "intelligence and sensitivity" of Tamhane's direction.[14]
It also received five-star reviews from London-based indie film site Dog And Wolf[15] and Spanish film site El antepenúltimo mohicano;[16] and four-star reviews from British blogs Cine-Vue and CultureFly.[17][18]
In India[edit]
Court has an 8.5 Positive rating on ReviewMonk, an Indian movie review aggregation site (similar to MetaCritic). [19]
Court premiered in India at the 16th Mumbai Film Festival in October 2014, winning Best Film and Best Director as well as a special mention from the jury for its cast. Reviews from the festival have universally praised the film. Nandini Ramnath ofScroll.in called it a "remarkably assured, engrossing study of the power of the law and order machinery to crush protest through delays, deferred hearings and demands for further evidence." [20] Mayank Shekhar, owner of pop culture websiteTheW14.com, wrote in Open Magazine about the film, calling it "a deeply humanistic account" and his favourite Indian film of the year.[21] FirstPost's Deepanjana Pal called it "ludicrous, hilarious, and heartbreaking."[22] Meenakshi Shedde reviewed the film in Mid-Day, concluding her piece with: "Here’s hoping these — and similar — films find distribution in India soon."[23]Suprateek Chatterjee included it in his list of the top five films at the festival in a piece for IBNLive, writing, "Tamhane is Indian cinema's next big thing and Court is destined to be a classic."[24]
In light of the film's critical success, Forbes Magazine's Indian edition profiled Tamhane in its annual '30 Under 30' list, calling him "Indian cinema's new voice of subversion."[25]
Distribution and release[edit]
Court was acquired by Artscope Films of French producer-distributor-sales agent Memento Films in late August 2014, just ahead of its Venice premiere.[26] As of December 2014, they had sold the film in four territories: Canada, Greece, the Middle East, and Hong Kong.[8] On February 3, 2015, American independent film distributor Zeitgeist Films announced that they had acquired the film for exhibition in the United States.[27] On January 21, 2015, it was announced that Court would have its US premiere at the 44th edition of New York's New Directors/New Films Festival in late March.[28]
Awards[edit]
71st Venice International Film Festival (Orizzonti)[2]
- Best Film
- Lion of the Future or the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for best debut film
16th Mumbai Film Festival (International competition)[29]
- Golden Gateway of India - Best Film
- Silver Gateway of India - Best Director
- Jury Special Mention for Ensemble Cast
51st International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (International competition)[30]
- SİYAD International Feature Film Award
Vienna International Film Festival[31]
- FIPRESCI award
Hong Kong Asian Film Festival[32]
- New Talent award
Minsk Film Festival Listapad (Youth on the March competition)[32]
- Best Film
Auteur Film Festival (International Competition)(Serbia)[33]
- Grand Prix Aleksandar Sasa Petrovic - Best Film
- FIPRESCI Prize Serbia Slobodan Novakovic
Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival (International competition)[32]
- Special mention of the jury
Singapore International Film Festival[34]
- Best Film: Asian Feature Film section (Silver Screen Award)
- Best Director
2morrow Festival (Moscow)[35]
- Best Script (Chaitanya Tamhane)
- Best Cinematography (Mrinal Desai)
FICUNAM (Unam International Film Festival) (Mexico)[36]
- Special mention of the jury (International competition)
62nd National Film Awards (India)[5]
- Best Feature Film
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