MFAH Film Houston Premieres: Court

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents another in its Houston Premieres series. Enjoy these critically acclaimed, award-winning international films as they make their Houston debut!

Court
Directed by Chaitanya Tamhane
2014, in Marathi, Hindi, English and Gujarati, with English subtitles
India
116 minutes
DCP

“Winner of top prizes at the Venice and Mumbai film festivals, Court is a quietly devastating, absurdist portrait of injustice, caste prejudice, and venal politics in contemporary India.

An elderly folk singer and grassroots organizer dubbed the ‘people’s poet’ is arrested on a trumped-up charge of inciting a sewage worker to commit suicide. His trial is a ridiculous and harrowing display of institutional incompetence, with endless procedural delays, coached witnesses for the prosecution, and obsessive privileging of arcane colonial law over reason and mercy.

What truly distinguishes Court, however, is Chaitanya Tamhane’s brilliant ensemble cast of professional and nonprofessional actors; his affecting mixture of comedy and tragedy; and his naturalist approach to his characters and to Indian society as a whole, rich with complexity and contradiction.

Court is a drama you can’t afford to miss.”  —New Directors/New Films