Top 10 Hindi cinema in 2018

In filmi parlance, 2018 could well have been a sequel to 2017 with superstars continuing to lose their shine and small films steadily making it bigger and bigger at the box office. Two of my top favourites this year, however, have been indies that played in the international film festival circuit and will, hopefully, reach out to the audience at large early in 2019: Ivan Ayr’s Soni that premiered in the Orrizonti section of the Venice International Film Festival and went on to win awards at Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival With Star and Pingyao International Film Festival and Rohena Gera’s Sir which opened at the Critics Week sidebar at Cannes. In much the same way Sir ’s yawning class divides, cruel collisions and unforeseen confluences across disparities held a mirror to the urban Indian society with a rare subdued force. Shoojit Sircar’s mellow and melancholic meditation on love and loss, on the fragility and resilience of life and on finding a rare bond in the face of mortality was the most achingly written film of the year that reached straight to the heart. Nandita Das’ biographical film was as much about the mercurial sub-continental icon as about his love for ‘Bombay’ and the continued relevance of his thoughts in today’s fractious times—whether he was talking about Hindu-Muslim unity or freedom of expression.