Lipstick Under My Burkha

An old house in Bhopal with four women in it. Usha is fifty five, a widow and respected in the neighbourhood; nobody knows she reads erotic novels in secret at night and is in love with her swimming instructor. Shireen has borne three children and works in sales without her husband knowing; he does not know she is the best salesperson there. Leela works at a salon and her mother has found her a husband; she is planning to run off with the man she loves. Rehana is at university; she leaves home in a burka, then takes it off and steals jeans from a shop. The four are in the same building and none tells the others. Alankrita Shrivastava writes and directs. Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra and Plabita Borthakur are in the cast. The language is Hindi. The film won the Spirit of Asia award at the Tokyo Film Festival and the gender equality award at the Mumbai Film Festival. India's censor board refused it a release certificate, citing sexual content and language. The producers appealed and the appellate tribunal overturned the decision, writing that the film had not been judged in its entirety. The certificate came in June and the film opened on 21 July 2017. The matter it treats is a hidden life; each of the four lives her own desire inside a lie. The narrative gives none of them a happy ending and all four pay. The final scene brings the four together and builds on silence rather than speech. Its limit is structure; the four stories are not equally deep and some stay short. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian independent cinema and narratives about women. Who it is not for: it is bleak, in pieces, and the ending bitter.