Film Review-1: Award Winning Films At Film Festival Of Shimla -“A Feast for the eye”

By: Vijay Kumar Verma, Editor-ICN Group

SHIMLA: The 4th International Film Festival of Shimla provided a unique opportunity for the city dwellers to watch a number of award winning from India and abroad.  As many as 80 films from 23 countries were showcased during the three day film festival from October 12 to 14, 2018.

An award winning film “Sinjar” produced by Pampally from Kochi,  Kerala beautifully brings out the pains of two Muslim women who had been abused by the ISIS terrorists in captivity in Iraq was a star attraction.

Sinjar is a 2017 Indian Jasari language film written and directed by Sandeep Pampally. The movie grabbed the Best Feature Film in Jasari award at the 65th National Film Awards, which were declared at New Delhi on April 13, 2018. Sinjar also won award in Best Debut Film of a Director.

The film portrays the plight of the poor woman who gets pregnant as a result of the physical abuse by ISIS terrorists. Back home her fiance, a fishermen from coastal Kochi refuses to accept her in marriage though his own sister too was a victim of the abuse. All efforts by the community elders too fail to make him see the truth.

Her plight worsens when the government hospital refuses to abort the child under the laid down laws while the judiciary too fails to come to her rescue.  The pangs of horror under captivity portrays not only physical but mental agony of these burqua clad victims, purportedly from the Kerala. The pathos are writ large on their faces. True, the physical abuse injures the phyche within and  is not  short lived.

On the other side the inner conflixt of the hero who is being suggested to accept the woman as well as the would be child is well captured. The cinematography,  the minimal dialogues subtitled in English talk beyond the storyline. Overall a good feature film.

To be Continued. ….

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