This film was released 25th March 2016, and is no longer screening.

EXCLUSIVELY AT IFI

India’s legal system comes under scrutiny in Chaitanya Tamhane’s remarkably assured and quietly angry debut feature. Narayan Kamble (Vira Sathidar) is a 65-year-old part-time educator and social activist poet who tours with his troupe around working class communities in Mumbai. He’s arrested and charged with inciting a sewerage worker to kill himself after listening to one of his recitals. Tamhane delineates the Kafka-esque complications of the ensuing trial with forensic eye for detail.

Contrary to what the title might suggest, Tamhane spends as much time outside of the courtroom exploring the private lives of defensive attorney and public prosecutor alike and how social class distinctions impact upon their processes. With its roots in the social realist tradition and humanist in its outlook, Court is an intricate, three-dimensional portrait of a dysfunctional judiciary. (Notes by David O’Mahony.)

Don’t forget we now schedule weekly.