The Red Lorry Film Festival: Parallel Universe concluded on Sunday. This is the second edition of the festival, and the first in Hyderabad. The third day continued to witness great footfall for both its ‘Legacy Rewind’ section, with screenings of old classics like Teesri Manzil, Chhatrapati and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, and masterclass sessions by eminent personalities like Anjum Rajabali and Neelakantan. Among the contemporary film screenings, The Things You Kill stood out in particular. Playing on the themes of patriarchy and the generational cycle of violence with a touch of surrealism, the Alireza Khatami directorial is a spectacular cinematic accomplishment that left the audience equally gobsmacked and overwhelmed on Sunday.
However, the recurring theme among the other top film screenings was the exploration of the many facets of womanhood by women filmmakers.
Confidante (2025), co-directed by Çağla Zencirci along with Guillaume Giovanetti, tells a riveting story about a phone sex worker who gets involved in the life of an anonymous teenager stuck under the rubble in a post-earthquake aftermath, unravelling an intricate web that goes deep down the city's underbelly. At a crisp duration of 84 minutes, the film explores societal prejudices that women continue to face while nobly striving for its betterment.
Magma, directed by Cyprien Vial, brings a unique visual landscape for the audience, telling the story of Katia, an accomplished yet ageing volcanologist. Narrated with the swift pacing of a thriller, Magma deftly captures Katia’s travails as she tackles her dual-edged status as a powerful white woman stationed in Soufrière, a town used to constant displacements due to threats of volcano eruptions while also brimming with tense undercurrents of racial conflicts.
Based on a true story, the Icíar Bollaín directorial I am Nevenka is a gut-wrenching film about an ambitious woman struggling to break free from the reins of an abusive superior. Boosted by a magnificently searing performance by its lead actor Mireia Oriol, the pulpy yet searing drama resonates even more deeply in the wake of the Me-Too movement and the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, with its depiction of systemic violence endured by women, where they continue to be gaslit and punished for being true to themselves, in a world that almost always plays to the whims and fancies of powerful men. As the film, set in the late 90s and early 2000s, ends with an epilogue about Nevenka’s whereabouts despite her victory in the courtroom, you realise the unfading nature of tragedies faced by women like her, and the cultural significance of a film like I am Ne(ve)nka for times like these.