COURT
A film by Chaitanya Tamhane
2014 / Maharashtra/ Marathi / 116
minutes
3 Supplements (5 minutes
each) on ‘COURT’ will be screened
One in
the beginning and rest after the film
A study in
class, bureaucracy, and censorial stupidity, young film maker Chaitanya
Tamhane's debut feature, Court, plants viewers in the plastic chairs of an
Indian court of law as 69-year-old protest singer Narayan Kamble (Vira
Sathidar) is tried for a crime he didn't commit. 
A well- to-do
activist lawyer (Vivek Gomber, who has also produced the film) represents
Kamble in court while the public prosecutor (Geetanjali Kulkarni) fights tooth
and nail to ensure he stays in jail. At one point she even cites archaic laws
to claim that the elderly singer is a threat to the sovereignty of India. The
defense lawyer knows very well that these laws are antiquated and irrelevant,
but apart from being patient and carrying on the fight, there is precious
little he can do.
Beyond
criticism of India’s judiciary, the director implicitly implicates the
country’s education system, which creates professionals skilled in rote
learning yet completely lacking in independent thinking. Where the trial scenes
use the legal system’s ponderous rules to hang itself, sequences showing the
lawyers outside working hours reveal, via exceptionally nuanced observations,
the sorts of influences and lives led by the two sides.
“Court” ends
up being a great courtroom drama: it treats the audience as both witness and
jury and lays out a sprawling argument for them to ponder over. It’s hard to
shake this one off long after the credits have rolled.
(
Source:Internet)
Chaitanya
Tamhane
Born in
Mumbai in 1987, Chaitanya Tamhane is an English literature graduate from
Mithibai College of Arts. He has written and directed a feature-length
documentary titled FOUR STEP PLAN (2006), chronicling the trends of plagiarism
in Indian cinema. His first full-length play as a writer-director, Grey
Elephants in Denmark opened to critical acclaim in Mumbai and had several
successful shows at prestigious venues. SIX STRANDS (2010), his first fictional
short film was screened at various international film festivals including
Rotterdam International Film Festival, Clermont Ferrand International Film
Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Slamdance, and many others.
Chaitanya’s
debut feature film, COURT (2014), premiered at the 71st Venice Film
Festival, where it won the Lion of the Future award for best debut and the
Orizzonti award for Best film. Since
then, the film has gone on to win 16 international awards at various
prestigious film festivals. He was recently featured in Forbes India‘s list of
30 young Indian achievers under the age of 30.
FILMOGRAPHY
COURT /
Feature / 2014
SIX STRANDS /
Short / 2010
FOUR STEP
PLAN / Documentary / 2006
