The stoic philosopher Seneca once said, “Every guilty person is his own hangman.” This could well be the tagline of Nirvana Inn, a film written and directed by Vijay Jayapal, on the manifestations of survivor’s guilt. Jayapal conceptualised this film after he read a newspaper article about a suicidal pilot crashing his own plane with passengers aboard. Jayapal has given a delicious ‘What-if’ spin on this incident in the form of Nirvana Inn, fronted by Adil Hussain. Adil is Jogiraj Chakraborty, a man who has migrated from his hometown of Majuli in Assam to Himachal Pradesh, where he becomes the caretaker of the eponymous Nirvana Inn. Within days of taking up…

The opening credits of Thorati provide a pleasant surprise. Usually a space reserved for disclaimers like ‘No animals were harmed / Characters are not based on anyone’, in Thorati , it instead claims that the film is ‘not karpanai‘ and the events it depicts actually happened in Southern Tamil Nadu. It has been some time since we saw a ‘based on true events’ period film in Tamil cinema, and Thoratti, set in 1980s Ramanathapuram, is staged so wonderfully that we are actually transported to that milieu for the entire runtime. Cast: Shaman Mithru, Sathyakala Director: P Marimuthu Thoratti is a word that refers to the tool (a sickle mounted on a stick)…