Bandit Queen

* Trailer is currently not available.

Bandit Queen
UK, India | 1994 | 119’ | Blu-ray | Colour | Hindi, Assamese | Group: D

Director: Shekhar Kapur

An introduction of the film will be given by film delegation before the film screening

The story of Phoolan Devi, India’s most infamous outlaw, kidnapper, murderer and scourge of the upper castes. Sold into marriage aged 11, she is flailed, beaten, humiliated and repeatedly raped. Phoolan rejects her expected role as doormat to both husband and upper caste, and instead wreaks bloody revenge against those responsible for the brutality of her past. Her five-year run as gang leader in the spectacular scenery of Uttar Pradesh ended in 1983 when, before a cheering crowd of 10,000 supporters, she gave herself up to the police. The film’s screenplay by Male Sen is based on interviews with Devi and her prison diaries.

Shekhar Kapur’s first feature film Masoom (1983) won the Filmfare Critics Award for best film of the year and his second Mr India (1987) was declared one of the 100 Greatest Indian Films Of All Time in 2013 by CNN-IBN. He gained International recognition with his 1994 film BanditQueen which was selected for Directors Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the National Film Award in India for best feature film in Hindi. Bandit Queen elevated him to the global stage and he was subsequently hired to direct Elizabeth (1998), a lavish UK period epic which would catapult Cate Blanchett to stardom in the role of the 16th century queen of England. It won five BAFTA awards and was nominated for seven Oscars in 1998. Ten years later, Kapur and Blanchett reteamed for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). His other credits include stage show Bombay Dreams which he co-created with Andrew Lloyd Webber and The Four Feathers, the 2002 film of the AEW Mason novel which starred the late Heath Ledger.