Roobha

Last updated

Roobha
Directed by Lenin M. Sivam
Written byLenin M. Sivam
Story by Antonythasan Jesuthasan
Produced byWarren Sinnathamby
StarringAmrit Sandhu
Antonythasan Jesuthasan
Thenuka Kantharajah, Sornalingam Vyramuthu, Cassandra James, Dan Bertolini, Tharshiny Varapragasam, Bhavani Somasundaram, Ishwaria Chandru
CinematographyArsenij Gusev
Edited byThomas Buschbeck & Rohan Fernando
Music byAsif Illyas
Production
company
Next Productions
Release date
  • 25 August 2018 (2018-08-25)(Montreal)
Running time
104 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguagesTamil
English

Roobha is a 2018 Canadian film directed and written by Lenin M. Sivam. It was produced by Warren Sinnathamby under the banner of Next Productions and stars Amrit Sandhu and Antonythasan Jesuthasan. It is based on a story by Antonythasan Jesuthasan, who writes under the pseudonym Shoba Sakthi. The film explores the harsh realities faced by a young South-Asian trans-woman who struggles to make a living in Toronto after she is ostracized by her family.

Contents

Roobha had its world premiere at Montreal World Film Festival on August 25, 2018. [1] [2] It was also the opening film of the 18th Annual Reelworld Film Festival in Toronto, Canada, an Official Selection for the Cambridge Film Festival, [3] Official Selection in the World Panorama Section of the International Film Festival of India in Goa, [4] Official Selection of the Windsor International Film Festival in Canada, Official Selection of the Whistler Film Festival in Canada, London Indian Film Festival in UK, Official Selection of the Melbourne Indian Film Festival in Australia, and Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival. [5]

Plot

Roobha, a trans-woman, struggles to make a living in Toronto after she is ostracized by her family. Her chance encounter with a family man, Anthony, leads to a beautiful romance. However, their blissful existence is short-lived as their families soon discover their relationship.

Cast

Festivals

Reception

A review at That Shelf wrote, "Sivam’s bittersweet love story highlights the best and the worst of what humanity has to offer. The film depicts acts of prejudice, cruelty, and malice that leave you feeling cynical about a better tomorrow. But Roobha also features acts of love, compassion, and selflessness that remind us what makes the world worth saving" [6] while Asian Movie Pulse found " There was a number of scenes where it felt like it could have been better but considering the importance of the way the story is said and the budget, it is an accomplishment the makers could be proud of." [7]

Related Research Articles

Reelworld Film Festival, founded in 2001 by Tonya Williams, is held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival screens film and provides professional development for Canadian racially diverse and indigenous filmmakers and media artists.

The KASHISH Pride Film Festival is an annual LGBTQ event that has been held in Mumbai, India, since 2010. The film festival screens gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer films from India and around the world. It is voted as one of the top five LGBT film festivals in the world.

<i>1999</i> (film) 2009 film by Lenin M. Sivam

1999 is a 2009 Canadian Tamil-language crime drama film written and directed by Lenin M. Sivam. It had its world premiere at the 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).

Lenin M. Sivam is a Canadian filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leena Manimekalai</span> Film maker, poet, and actor

Leena Manimekalai is an Indian filmmaker, poet and an actor. Her works include five published poetry anthologies and several films in genres, documentary, fiction and experimental poem films. She has been recognised with participation, mentions and best film awards in many international and national film festivals.

<i>A Gun & a Ring</i> Canadian film

A Gun & a Ring is a 2013 Canadian Tamil-language drama film written and directed by Lenin M. Sivam. The film explores the harsh realities faced by different generations of Toronto Sri Lankans. It was nominated for Golden Goblet Award at the 16th Shanghai International Film Festival. It was also officially selected for the 37th Montreal World Film Festival (WFF) took place 22 August – 2 September 2013 to present under "Focus on World Cinema".

<i>Bollywood Beats</i> 2009 American film

Bollywood Beats is a 2009 Bollywood-inspired dance film written and directed by Mehul Shah. It was produced by Kinetik Films and distributed by Breaking Glass Films.

<i>Dheepan</i> 2015 film

Dheepan is a 2015 French crime drama film directed by Jacques Audiard and co-written by Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, and Noé Debré. The film was partly inspired by Montesquieu's Persian Letters, as well as the 1971 film Straw Dogs, with guidance from Antonythasan Jesuthasan, who stars as the title character.

<i>How to Be Alone</i> (film) 2016 Israeli film

How to Be Alone is a 2016 short Israeli student film, produced and directed by Erez Eisenstein. The script is an adaptation of a short story of the same name by Orna Coussin, first published in 2006.

<i>Anatomy of Violence</i> 2016 film

Anatomy of Violence is a Canadian drama film which premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Deepa Mehta, the film explores the root causes leading up to the 2012 Delhi gang rape incident.

Jesse Wente is a First Nations Canadian arts journalist and chairperson of the Canada Council for the Arts. He is an Ojibwe member of Serpent River First Nation.

<i>Evening Shadows</i> 2018 film

Evening Shadows is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Sridhar Rangayan. The film stars Mona Ambegaonkar, Ananth Narayan Mahadevan, Devansh Doshi, Arpit Chaudhary, Yamini Singh, Abhay Kulkarni, Veena Nair, Kala Ramnathan, Disha Thakur, Sushant Divgikar and Faredoon Bhujwala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shailene Garnett</span> Canadian actress (active 2012-)

Shailene Garnett is a Canadian actress and filmmaker. She is known for starring in a variety of television series, including the CBC Television series Diggstown (2019–2022) and Murdoch Mysteries (2018–present), the Freeform series Shadowhunters (2016), and the Netflix series Between (2015).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Sangha</span> Canadian social worker and documentary film producer

Alex Sangha is a Canadian social worker and documentary film producer. He is the founder of Sher Vancouver which is a registered charity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) South Asians and their friends. Sangha was the first Sikh to become a Grand Marshal of the Vancouver Pride Parade. Sangha received the Meritorious Service Medal from Governor General Julie Payette in 2018 for his work founding Sher Vancouver. Sangha's first short documentary film, My Name Was January, won 14 awards and garnered 66 official selections at film festivals around the world. Sangha's debut feature documentary, Emergence: Out of the Shadows, was an official selection at Out on Film in Atlanta, Image+Nation in Montreal, and Reelworld in Toronto. The film was the closing night film at both the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal and the Vancouver International South Asian Film Festival where it picked up Best Documentary. Emergence: Out of the Shadows also had a double festival premiere at the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival and the Mumbai International Film Festival during the same week, where it was in competition at both film festivals for Best Documentary. The film also had an in-person and online screening at the 46th annual Frameline: San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival which is "the longest-running, largest and most widely recognized LGBTQ+ film exhibition event in the world."

<i>Bite of a Mango</i> 2022 Canadian comedy-drama film

Bite of a Mango is a 2022 Canadian drama/comedy film written by Joanne Jansen and Ron Dias and directed by Dias in his directorial debut. The film stars Jayne Kamara, Ryan Rosery, Orville Cummings, Nathan Taylor, and Shawna Stewart.

<i>Antharam</i> 2022 Indian film

Antharam is a 2022 Indian Malayalam language film directed by P. Abhijith. The Film is about the inner conflicts, warmth, trauma and joyous moments in the lives of a trans woman, a teenage girl and a man living under the same roof.

The Protector is 2022 Canadian thriller film written and directed by Lenin M. Sivam and produced by Munire Armstrong.

Unwoman is a Hindi-language drama film produced by Gunjan Goel under the banner of Hashtag Films LLP. The film is categorised under the genre of love, social issues, LGBTQ+, and drama. The earlier name of the film was Sanwri.

Orah is a Canadian crime thriller film, written and directed by Lonzo Nzekwe, and released in 2023. The film stars Oyin Oladejo as Orah Madukaku, a Nigerian woman who moved to Canada as a refugee after intentionally killing a man in her youth. Getting involved in a money laundering scheme in the hopes of finally being able to bring her son to Canada, she runs afoul of ringleader Bami Hazar, who orders the murder of her son, sparking Orah to go on a revenge spree to settle the score.

Jamila Pomeroy is a Kenyan-Canadian writer, director, filmmaker and actor. She is best known for her 2022 series A Happier Planet with Jamila Pomeroy on CBC, and her 2023 documentary film Union Street.

References

  1. ↑ "ROOBHA: UNE FEMME PLUS QUE FANTASTIQUE". sequences. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Lenin M Sivam's 'Roobha': A Canadian film on transgender stigma". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  3. ↑ "'Through Roobha, we wanted the LGBTQ+ community to fearlessly assert their rights as human beings'". The Times of India. 22 October 2018. ISSN   0971-8257 . Retrieved 4 March 2024.
  4. ↑ "Roobha's Worldwide Release Is A Labour Of Love". TamilCulture.com. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
  5. ↑ Chakraborty, Sucheta (26 June 2019). "At the end of the rainbow". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 4 March 2024.
  6. ↑ Staff, That Shelf (17 November 2020). "Roobha Review". That Shelf. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
  7. ↑ Mohan, Jithin (15 June 2019). "Film Review: Roobha (2018) by Lenin M. SIvam (LIFF LGBTQ Screening)". Asian Movie Pulse. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.