A box of letters is found on the campus of the Film and Television Institute of India. Signed by a student with the name »L«, the letters trace the incursion of the Hindu Nationalist BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been in office since May 2014, into the left-liberal environment of the film school. An invented archive becomes an outlet for a personal and social crisis.

The 16 mm black-and-white images, juxtaposed with the fictional letters read aloud, appear in dream-like – bad dreams, that is – form. Exuberant dance scenes are slowly followed by images of strikes and protests that swept the country in response to the new citizenship law and the rise in tuition fees. While »L« laments the end of an inter-caste love in her letters, the demonstrators shout the right to free choices in private as well as political life. The freedom to say »yes« clashes with increasing discrimination against women, Muslims, Dalits and critical journalists under Modi’s rule. As the violence continues to escalate, the students search for answers to the question of what role a state-aided film school should play in such times.

Dancing, loving, demonstrating and discussing as means of protest run throughout Payal Kapadia’s debut and lighten the sadness-drenched images. How close helplessness and hope are in times of upheaval and how crucial the language of cinema can be in all of this is impressively told by Kapadia.

This film has been nominated for the Audience Award endowed with 1,000 euro. Please vote after watching the movie.
You can find an overview of all nominated films here.