Stanley Ka Dabba

Amole Gupte's 2011 film opens on a primary school pupil who brings no lunch. Stanley has no lunch box, so his friends share theirs with him. A teacher who notices, and who is himself constantly helping himself to the children's food, tells Stanley not to come to school until he brings a box of his own. The film's strength is giving the children's world without an adult gloss. Gupte shot it over a year and a half, only at weekends, during workshops he ran at a Mumbai school, with something close to a hundred and seventy real pupils in the cast. Partho, in the lead, is the director's son. The film withholds the reason the boy has no lunch for a long time, and when the answer comes the tone changes completely. Who it's for: viewers who like Indian films centred on children and realistic school stories. Who it's not for: anyone expecting a light family picture; the ending is quite hard.