‘Kathak: Dancing With Taboos’ Film Festival Review: A Story of Passion and Perseverance
Eloquent and informative, Hajera Sheikh’s documentary Kathak: Dancing With Taboos tells a story of love for one’s culture and perseverance through adversity.

Angoroj (1964; Esperanto for "Agonies") was the first feature film to be produced entirely in Esperanto. (Jacques-Louis Mahé, a friend of Raymond Schwartz and under the pseudonym of 'Lorjak', had however already produced a silent Esperanto publicity film before World War II, titled Antaŭen! (Onwards!). At the start of the 1960s Mahé, a professional photographic and cinematic expert, invested in the production of the first fictional film in Esperanto. Using a scenario by Mahé himself, the actors of the Internacia Arta Teatro (International Arts Theatre) presented a crime story, set in the Parisian periphery of petty thieves and cheats. Other notable people who played parts in the film included Schwartz (the commissioner), Gaston Waringhien (the voice-over) and many from the environs of the contemporary Paris, including a very young Michel Duc-Goninaz.
Eloquent and informative, Hajera Sheikh’s documentary Kathak: Dancing With Taboos tells a story of love for one’s culture and perseverance through adversity.
Spirited inverts the tropes of the holiday musical genre to update an age-old tale for 2022. It's a paean to those who make grand spectacles possible.
While prioritizing production value over substance, Flood depicts an emotionally taut family drama set during the farmland flooding of the Franco-Dutch war.
The plot could’ve really been interesting if the elements of lycanthropy was integrated with perhaps the struggle of identity of being LGBTQ+. It's an experience for so many that as they’re starting to realizing their true selves, they feel like a monster, especially if they come from unsupportive homes or communities. Instead, the horror and transformation elements seem thrown in without contemplation of how this could deepen the narrative.
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film "Pyscho" is an American film classic that still resonates today.