Kathal

Yashowardhan Mishra's first feature, written by his father and released directly on Netflix, is an Indian satire. When two prized jackfruits vanish from a politician's garden, the entire local police station mobilizes for the case. Inspector Mahima Basor, leading the investigation, stumbles onto the trail of a missing girl and uses the trivial fruit case as cover to break up a human trafficking ring. The fruit, it emerges, was taken by monkeys. The film's real subject is bureaucratic absurdity: police mobilize over two pieces of fruit while serious crime goes unattended. Mahima is a Dalit woman contending with caste prejudice at work, an intercaste relationship, and the way her social standing erodes her authority. The director framed it this way: Kathal was about recognizing my privileges as an upper caste man. It won Best Hindi Feature Film at India's National Film Awards, where a jury member praised it for peeling back the absurd layers of bureaucracy. Sanya Malhotra met with women police officers, shadowed one for a day, and worked with a dialect coach for the regional accent. Who it's for: Fans of Indian films that fold political satire and caste critique into comedy. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting consistent tone, since critics found its swings between comedy and gravity uneven.