Category: Film/TV

Congratulations, Indira Tiwari

An overdue congratulations to my good friend Indira Tiwari on making her first film outside of India. We met by chance in a theatre lobby when she was in Kolkata shooting Suman Mukhopadyay‘s amazing indie film Nazarband and I was completing my Fulbright research in 2019. We quickly became friends.

She was on her way to audition in Mumbai for Serious Men and got the role, a major break for her co-starring alongside Nawaz Sidiqqui, which premiered on Netflix in 2020. I’m looking forward to watching her as the female lead in Cannes Prizewinner Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars, as covered in Variety, an international collaboration between India, Sri Lanka and France. Go, Indira!

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The Jeff & Shuvam Show #5: Khel Khel Mein

Shuvam’s on vacation in India this month so guest co-host Ishan and I closed out the year by reviewing the Hindi-language film Khel Khel Mein, a hilarious romantic comedy about brutal honesty in the digital age.

Streaming now on Netflix, it’s a perfect film to watch for the holidays with your 13-and-ups.

It’s like The Hangover meets Glass Onion…This group of friends all come together and decide to play a game where everyone’s phones are public . . .You can guess how everything’s going to quickly go horribly wrong, but you can’t. You couldn’t guess. That’s one thing I loved about the movie.

– The Jeff & Shuvam Ishan Show

Dive into our review below. Our blinky Santa hats are widely available in the US but these two are important to us because we bought them on the street in Kolkata (Park Street and New Market) during various trips when we happened to be there in December. We treat them like gold!

The Jeff & Shuvam Show is shot in Philadelphia and produced in Kolkata by award-winning film director and my fellow former Fulbrighter Abhijit Chowdhury and his media production company Concept Cube.

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FIIGin’ Awesome

Attention current or former Fulbrighters who have made a film about South Asia: we’ve launched a film festival just for you. Your Fulbright research/teaching award doesn’t have to have been in South Asia for you to submit your film. See full details on the FIIG Film Festival below. Deadline 1/15/25!

Dhrubo rocks KIFF

Woohoo! Colossal congratulations to my friend, colleague and fellow Fulbrighter Abhijit Chowdhury, Concept Cube, Fourth Floor Entertainment and the entire cast and crew of The Strange Life of Dhrubo for rocking the Kolkata International Film Festival’s National Competition, Bengali Panorama category. Can’t say I’m surprised but I love hearing the news.

Dhrubo at KIFF

And it keeps on rolling. Congratulations, Abhijit Chowdhury and team, producers of The Jeff & Shuvam Show, for their latest feature film The Strange Life of Dhrubo making it into the prestigious Kolkata International Film Festival. I’ve seen it but I wish I could watch it on the big screen in the City of Joy.