Firaaq

I think I'm in love. With Nandita Das. Of course, her choices in her acting career have never been anything but exemplary, so I was expecting her maiden directorial venture, Firaaq, to be good atleast. But i was unprepared for the extent to which i was moved by this moving tapestry of a few lives after the Gujarat riots.
Inevitably, there will be the usual community lovers who will cry out without even watching the movi of how these movies only show one side of the story or only the suffering suffered by one community. I loved the response she had for one of those. "I'm not pro-Muslim, I'm pro-humanity'. It expressed the sentiment throughout the movie beautifully. Or how she responded to Modi's response to have a 'special' screening of the movie by retorting that the movie has been released, he can go watch it.
The film is helped in a large measure by the amazingly talented ensemble of actors, the more famous of them being Naseerudin Shah, Sanjay Suri (a very under rated actor in my opinion), Deepti Naval, Paresh Rawal and Shahana Goswami (of Rock On fame).
Incidentally, i went to watch the movie with Af, a pal who follows Islam, but who i found to be more liberal and openminded than most others i know. A fitting response to all those prejudiced and so called educated fools out there.

Heck, i sure hope she keeps making movies more often.