Gul Is Ready for a Close-up

Gul Panag is an actor, activist, TV host, and now a creative producer. In her short film for Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films, Manoranjan (2022), she portrays Lalita, a homemaker, who seems to be running a perfect home from all accounts, while also running a small papad-making business on the side. She seems to have two children who are out studying, a husband who is good to her in an absent-minded way, and a mother-in-law to whom she is quite attached. Yet, when a young man, the son of her husband’s best friend, comes visiting, it appears that all is not well with her. Panag says she wrote the story towards the end of the pandemic. She was very struck by the story, The Open Window, by HH Munro, and spoke to her long-time mentor and friend Suhail Tatari, who directed Manoranjan as well. She had a few pillars in mind: she is unhappy about this boy visiting, so she seizes the opportunity of doing something at the boy’s expense. Sukhmani Sadana wrote the screenplay and dialogues while Tatari layered the basic premise with some deep sorrow from the past, and Lalita’s pendulum-like emotions of moving from extreme sorrow to excessive joy. Lalita uses a prank to deal with the sorrow. It’s been well received, says Panag. “I have made more short films since then and am ready to take the plunge as director now,” she adds. We can’t wait. A former Miss India, Panag has been acting since her debut in the well-regarded Dhoop in 2003, and continues to be relevant in the age of streaming with Season 1 of Prime Video’s The Family Man and Paatal Lok.

War Games in the Desert

Archana Atul Phadke made the most charming documentary about three generations of her family living in a Mumbai home in About Love in 2019. The story takes off when a wedding is being planned. It was funny, poignant and all kinds of wonderful. Her follow-up is a more serious take on how technology is affecting the lives of young people. Titled Mirage and shot on an iPhone for MAMI Select Short Films, it tells the story of a young shepherd in Jaisalmer who is addicted to a war game on the phone. “When I started making Mirage, it was about a boy coping with withdrawal of losing his phone. I wanted to capture the vast expanse of the desert too. I travel a lot and have seen wherever I go that kids are addicted to PUBG, Frontier or Call of Duty and when the phones are taken away, they react in extreme ways, sometimes even committing suicide,” she says. They are also exposed to ideas of war at a young age through gaming and the idea of soldiers as heroes. “I thought this boy who aspires to be a soldier in the game, he escapes into a pocket of gaming in real life as a sort of a withdrawal,” she adds. The MAMI jury for the selection of five shorts was a tough one—filmmakers Vishal Bhardwaj, Vikramaditya Motwane and Rohan Sippy. Currently, Phadke, alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus, is in the middle of shooting another documentary, one of a growing band of young filmmakers in India who are chronicling life as it is.

Janhvi Comes of Age

Janhvi Kapoor usually makes more news for her red-carpet choices than the movies she appears in. It’s the same with the promotions for her forthcoming film, Mr. & Mrs. Mahi, where she plays an aspiring cricketer. A dress with cricket ball detailing, a Kanjivaram sari with the recreation of a shot from the 1983 World Cup, a dress with a glittering cut-out of a batsman in full flow, and a crop top with ‘No. 6 Mahi’ written on. Her 24.3 million followers on Instagram couldn’t be happier with the content, which often includes her dance practice. But this year may well be her breakout, with two years of intensive cricket training paying off in Mr. & Mrs. Mahi. July will see her as a young diplomat in a spy thriller, Ulajh, while later in the year, she will be part of Devara, Jr NTR’s first release after RRR. The decision to move seamlessly between Mumbai and Hyderabad/Chennai is a wise one. Not only will it build on her mother, the late Sridevi’s legacy, but will also add some muscle to her career. In 2025, she will be seen in RC16, opposite RRR’s other star, Ram Charan, and Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari alongside Varun Dhawan. Kapoor has had more than her share of misses since her debut in Dhadak in 2018, apart from the enormous tragedy of losing her mother even before her first film was out. About time she had some luck.

Archana Atul PhadkeBollywoodcinemaGul PanagJanhvi Kapoor