The Sethusamudaram controversy which has pitchforked the very existence of Ram onto the country’s political centre stage and collective cultural consciousness draws one to the title of seminal work by Noble Laureate Sir V S Naipaul’s India: A Million Mutinities Now.

There were many revolutions within that revolution. Disruptive, lesser loyalties — of region, caste, and clan — now played on the surface of Indian life. Spotlighting on, and focusing the celluloid mirror on the communal and fundamental divide and the angst of religious minoritism that repeatedly rends a nation apart, is a triad of specially curated films being featured this weekend by Bangalore Film Society.

Appropriately titled — Amar Akbar Anthony — these triumvirate of films bring three different strands of topical themes into stark study through the highly accoladed works of three different film-makers for City’s cinephiles to catch upon.

The cinematic journey begins with Anurag Kashyap’s highly controversial but equally acclaimed Black Friday. The selection of the film is even more opportune in the light of the recent judgement in the 1993 serial blasts cases, wherein Bollywood’s own ‘Munnabhai’ was handed out a sentence. The film chronicles one of the darkest chapters of the country — the aftermath of the serial bombings that rocked the ‘dream city’. The film delves into the larger communal divide that swept the nation leading to the fateful day that history now remembers as Black Friday.

Chronicling the quintessential angst and anxiety of a lame Muslim who belongs to the Mumbai’s alleys whose only source of income is by inciting communal riots is renowned director Saeed Mirza’s Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro. The film traces the local thug’s search for one’s identity — on what he really is and wants to become — while facing the disadvantageous tag of a religious minority as he narrates the circumstances he was brought up and the mindset of people around him. Sensitively bringing to fore issues such as communal riots, fundamentalism, the film shows how despite Salim’s best intentions to turn a new leaf, circumstances (an impoverished household, a marriageable sister) do not allow and he invariably succumbs to the pressures of home and the society.
‘Come, question your faith’, goes the tagline of Bhavna Talwar’s debutant directorial essay Dharm which is being premiered in Bangalore by BFS. The highly acclaimed and accomplished celluloid outing by Talwar, set in the holy city of Bernas, centres on the personal and religious dilemma that a devout priest is confronted with when truth dawns about the boy he adopts. Caught between having to make a choice between his societal duties and own personal conscience, Dharm, as the title says it all, meditates on the eternal conflict between humanity and religion and boasts of a searing performance by Pankaj Kapur,

Screenings — Fri-Sun, 6.30 pm at Ashirvad, 30, St Mark’s Road Cross, Opp SBI. Admission by membership. For registration call: 25492774/25493705/ 98862-13516