Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare

Nithin Krishnamurthy's 2023 Kannada film opens with the death of a hostel warden. Fearing they will be blamed, the students decide to make it look like an accident and spend the night trying to put things right. The humour comes from panic. Every solution creates a new problem and the disagreement within the group grows; the narrative keeps the pace high and stays almost entirely in one place. The cast is made up entirely of new performers. The dialogue is in local speech and close to improvised; the film was made on a low budget and found unexpected attention in Kannada cinema. Who it's for: those who like black comedy and low-budget independent films. Who it's not for: viewers uncomfortable with suicide used as a comic premise; the film does this at the opening.