Latest news with #Tees
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Kiss movie review: Varun Grover's ambitious directorial debut combats authoritarianism with empathy
Comedian-writer-lyricist Varun Grover's directorial debut, Kiss, contains multitudes. The ideas that it is preoccupied by can be upsetting, even terrifying. But, made by someone who has clearly benefited from therapy, the movie is able to comprehend, contest, and communicate these preoccupations with a necessary calm. Kiss was finally released for public viewing on MUBI recently, a full three years after its festival run first began. It isn't at all like Grover's feature-length debut All India Rank, although both projects are marked by a decency that seems altogether absent from our culture these days. Fascinated by the idea of cinema as a therapeutic medium, the 15-minute short stars Adarsh Gourav as Sam, a young filmmaker who finds himself in a rather awkward ideological stand-off with a couple of men after the dreaded 'censor board' screening of his latest movie. The two men are played by Swanand Kirkire and Ashwath Bhatt; they're meant to represent this unnamed censor board, but they may as well be the moral police that sends filmmakers to prison in Iran, the settlers who drive people out of their homes in Palestine, or the Romeo squads that torment young lovers in India. Kiss could be set in the distant future, for all we know. There is a certain dystopian quality to the movie. Also read – Tees movie review: Dibakar Banerjee's unreleased saga is ambitious, intimate, and incendiary Sam waits patiently for the screening to end, confident that his film will emerge unscathed from the censors' unnecessarily violent cuts. The men tumble out of the ravishing art deco auditorium. Something is wrong, Sam can tell. He asks them how it went, and they tell him. The two men simply cannot fathom why Sam would make all their lives difficult by including an extended same-sex kiss in his film; they're so outraged at the idea of sexuality that they haven't even begun to wrap their heads around the fact that the kiss takes place between two versions of the same character. It's like a lazy cop rolling their eyes in frustration at a petty theft complaint. So much paperwork; why can't people keep an eye on the till? They're openly disdainful of Sam and his artistic vision, although they don't quite have the vocabulary to verbalise their complaints. Were a gun to be put to their heads, they would probably struggle to explain why exactly they're so offended. Are they troubled by the simple act of sensuality, or are they more annoyed by the prospect of performing overtime just because little old Sam wanted a kiss in his movie? Conditioned to view art through the lens of someone who sits at a 'galla', the two men demand that Sam present the timecodes for the kissing scene. He tells them that it lasts 28 seconds, which strikes them as odd. They could've sworn that it went on for longer. Sam suggests that they watch the scene again, with their timers on, only to make a more informed decision on how to approach cutting it. The three men trudge back into the old-timey theatre, and watch the scene again. A work of art has been reduced to CCTV footage. Grover's camera doesn't get distracted by what's happening on the screen; he trains his focus on the faces of the three men. Each of them gets a different reading on their watch; the same scene lasts under a minute for Sam, over two minutes for one of the men, and over three for his colleague. Time, it seems, is relative. 'No good movie is too long and no bad movie short enough,' said the great critic Roger Ebert once. One wonders what he'd have made of Kiss. Read more – Maagh – The Winter Within: The finest Indian film of the year, the only alternative to all the Animals out there The movie doesn't limit itself to this one idea, though. Having established the premise, it goes for a grand payoff. Grover is, after all, a comedian; not to mention the writer of perhaps the single greatest Hindi film of the last decade. He understands structure better than most. Kiss is able lure us into its world with a clearly enunciated simplicity, before pushing the envelope ever so gently. Having trained the audience to expect the unusual, it takes the potentially divisive risk of swinging hard as it enters its third act. In the climactic five minutes, Kiss turns into what can only be described as a Nolan-esque reimagining of Ratatouille. Both Sam and Grover are addressing their traumas the only way they know how: through their art. They have a right to be disheartened by the world they inhabit. But neither Grover nor his alter ego resorts to retribution. It would've been easy for him to vilify the two men. He's in control; one turn of the dial here, one pull of the lever there. And et voila, he'd have a couple of two-dimensional villains. Certainly, most people seem to appreciate thinly written characters these days. But he approaches the story with a Javed Akhtar-level sympathy for the devil. Along with Rohin Raveendran's The Booth, Shazia Iqbal's Bebaak, and Faraz Ali's Obur, Kiss is an urgent reminder of the paranoia that contemporary India has been cloaked under. Kiss Director – Varun Grover Cast – Adarsh Gourav, Swanand Kirkire, Ashwath Bhatt Rating – 4.5/5 Rohan Naahar is an assistant editor at Indian Express online. He covers pop-culture across formats and mediums. He is a 'Rotten Tomatoes-approved' critic and a member of the Film Critics Guild of India. He previously worked with the Hindustan Times, where he wrote hundreds of film and television reviews, produced videos, and interviewed the biggest names in Indian and international cinema. At the Express, he writes a column titled Post Credits Scene, and has hosted a podcast called Movie Police. You can find him on X at @RohanNaahar, and write to him at He is also on LinkedIn and Instagram. ... Read More
India Today
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- India Today
Dibakar Banerjee's ‘Tees': A muted masterpiece?
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated June 9, 2025)It had all the makings of a triumph—an acclaimed director, a powerhouse cast, and a standing ovation at the film's first Indian screening at the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) last year. Dibakar Banerjee's Tees drew cinephiles from across the country. Yet, the celebration carried the weight of heartbreak. In 2023, Netflix—the platform that had commissioned Tees in 2019 and to whom Banerjee delivered it in 2022—had quietly pulled the plug on its release, effectively locking away a film that deserved to be by Naseeruddin Shah, Manisha Koirala, Huma Qureshi, Shashank Arora, Zoya Hussain and Divya Dutta in pivotal roles, the 55-year-old filmmaker's triptych of stories follows three generations of a Kashmiri Muslim family. Across three different timelines—political unrest in 1989 Srinagar, communal violence in 2030 and censorship in 2043—Tees unfolds as its protagonists grapple with their identity, voice and systemic excision in an increasingly dystopian the film's commercial release in limbo, Banerjee spent the months since its DIFF premiere hosting private, non-ticketed screenings across India. Yet, it's not something he has done by choice. 'The screenings are a way of generating commercial and critical interest in the hope that somehow Tees lives by being seen,' Banerjee tells india today. Otherwise, unplayed, sitting on a hard drive, the film is as good as extinct. 'In such a situation, an audience connecting deeply with the film is gratifying and saddening. You love the fact that it moves someone but rue the fact that it can't move more.'advertisement To explore Tees's complex themes—rising communalism, generational trauma and queer marginalisation under a surveillance state—Banerjee, who co-wrote, directed and produced the film, pulled from both the personal and the political. This included memories from his childhood and neighbourhood, Indian television epics like Hum Log and Buniyaad, Ashapurna Devi's Prothom Protishruti trilogy and Robert Harris's speculative historical novel Fatherland, which he claims influenced him 'subconsciously'. But the film's urgency came from the filmmaker watching young couples, especially Muslims, trying to rent a flat in Mumbai and from the murder of Gauri Lankesh. SPANNING GENERATIONS |Naseeruddin Shah in a still from Tees Banerjee has been making Hindi movies for nearly two decades—boasting an oeuvre that is both distinct and impossible to replicate. He debuted with Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006), a sharp satire about middle-class aspirations; helmed Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), a found-footage style anthology; and went on to direct a segment in Netflix-backed anthologies Bombay Talkies (2013) and Lust Stories (2018). In many ways, the expansive ambition of Tees was meant to be a culmination of Banerjee's evolution as a filmmaker. But with Tees buried, he became the very figure his film mourns: an artist muted by the between, the filmmaker kept busy, directing a short film and releasing a potent sequel to Love Sex Aur Dhokha. Yet, Banerjee still found himself grappling with waves of anger and frustration. Navigating the emotional toll of the film's shelving while continuing to move forward as a filmmaker was a 'gradual' process—one he credits to therapy and a drive for inventive solutions. 'Choosing your workmates well is virtually half the battle won,' adds disappearance of Tees may be best understood in the context of the controversy that surrounded Tandav (2021), the Prime Video series that drew right-wing ire for its portrayal of dissent and religious imagery. Despite edits, legal cases mounted, and fear took hold. It sent a clear warning to streamers, who became increasingly cautious about supporting projects that might provoke similar backlash. In such a fragile climate, films like Tees have arguably become collateral to Banerjee, filmmaking is an expensive art form that demands 'mediated investment' but which become an easy target because of its ability to reach out to a massive audience. Suppressing art that focuses on truth-telling, questioning and challenging narratives is a surefire way to condition audiences in the practice of distraction. 'A generation growing up on moving images can be better controlled if cruelty, misogyny and empty spectacle are provided through films regularly,' he by existing, Tees defies that conditioning. Invisibilising it makes clear exactly which stories are unwelcome in India today. And yet, its disappearance has only amplified the urgency of what it had to to India Today MagazineMust Watch
India Today
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Dibakar Banerjee's cinema
It had all the makings of a triumph—an acclaimed director, a powerhouse cast, and a standing ovation at the film's first Indian screening at the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) last year. Dibakar Banerjee's Tees drew cinephiles from across the country. Yet, the celebration carried the weight of heartbreak. In 2023, Netflix—the platform that had commissioned Tees in 2019 and to whom Banerjee delivered it in 2022—had quietly pulled the plug on its release, effectively locking away a film that deserved to be seen.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: Pristine avocets under the cooling towers
Just across the bay there's a decommissioned North Sea oil platform, sawn off at the knees and propped up in the sprawling scrapyard of Able Seaton Port to decay in the sun and salt air. It looks like a mirage, a hallucination, crash-landed spaceship. This is Teesmouth. Between me and the platform, a work party of oystercatchers is busily processing the broad, dark sands of the bay. A dozen or so seals have hauled out a bit further along, and lie torpid in the hazy sunshine. In the north, we're used to wildlife thriving in post-industrial habitats – flooded gravel pits, old spoil tips, rewilded opencast workings. But this isn't post-industrial, it's (still somehow) industrial. I drove here slack-jawed, following straight roads through steaming cities of metal architecture, what we might call industrial gothic or robot baroque. Seal Sands is the name of both the bay and one of the vast chemical manufacturing clusters on the north bank of the Tees. For a while it was sort of a bad joke: between the 1930s and the 1960s, you were unlikely to see any sort of seal here. But the area was declared a site of special scientific interest in 1966, and they're back now, both grey and common seals. They don't seem to mind the oil platform or the chemicals works, or the shadows of Hartlepool power station. Not many people come here, and that's how they like it. Walk a couple of miles inland and at Saltholme Pools, near Stockton, you can watch the year's first avocet chicks picking their way on blue legs through the fertile mud, while their parents – pristine in black and white, only occasionally dropping the cool act to do a funny little hopping dance – sweep the waters with those remarkable retroussé bills. Look up and there in the near distance is the Middlesbrough transporter bridge, the tanks and towers of Navigator Terminals North Tees Ltd (a fuel storage hub), Whitetower Energy power station, all the titanic industrial clutter of the 20th-century Tees. Look back down and there's a lapwing chick paddling in the shallows. There are dunlins, little ringed plovers, black-tailed godwits in bright summer russet. These are not, for the most part, benevolent landscapes. But there's always hope (the thing with feathers). Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
BBC News
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Preston Park aviary works begin, as major revamp continues
Works to revamp a popular aviary, as part of a multi-million upgrade of a local park, are due to Preston Park is undergoing significant redevelopment after the council secured £20m in government Levelling Up funds for the regeneration of the Yarm and Eaglescliffe area. Preston Park's aviary, which has been a key feature of the site since the early 1980s, is set to be expanded as part of the redevelopment, affording visitors better views of the River Tees. Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council said they expect work on the aviary to be completed in July. The aviary's steel-domed structure will be retained, with the roof refurbished to provide additional shelter and a flexible seating small buildings within the aviary will be revamped, with secure doors added, which the council says could provide storage for outdoor activities such as paddle-boarding and open-water swimming by visiting artist, painter and former musician Kate Jackson will also create a mural across the back wall of the aviary, as part of the Stockton and Darlington Railway festival (S&DR200) which began in March and continues until September across the region. Other redevelopment projects in the park, including a two-storey extension to the museum, are near completion. The revamped museum, situated in a Grade II-listed, 19th century manor house within the park grounds, includes a new exhibition and gallery space for international exhibits - with councillor Nigel Cooke saying the site is "set to gain national attention".The enlarged space will also allow hundreds of unseen local objects to be put on park redevelopment includes an extension to the cafe, improved parking facilities and new public toilets."Our plans will ensure that other elements of the park, like the aviary, become a highlight once again for visitors," said Mr Cooke."The major exhibitions and events in the museum will bring thousands more visitors to Preston Park from the local area and further afield," he added. "I am looking forward to seeing so many people being able to enjoy this safe outdoor space once again." Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
