Baksho Bondi (Shadowbox, in Bengali, Hindi) was definitely an audience favourite at the Berlin Film Festival. Directed by Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi, it played in the new Perspectives section for first fiction features. Tanushree Das is an accomplished editor (Baksho Bondi, Eeb Allay Ooo! that was at the Berlinale) and Saumyananda Sahi is a well-known cinematographer (the Oscar-nominated All That Breathes, Eeb Allay Ooo!); here he is additionally director, producer and screenwriter. An international co-production between India, France, USA and Spain, the film has a raft of diverse producers, suggesting a “buddy model” of filmmaking.

Tillotama Shome plays Maya, a housewife living in a Kolkata suburb, who is single parent to two kids: one is her teenage son Debu (Sayan Karmakar), and the other is her husband Sundar (Chandan Bisht), an ex-soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), leaving him mentally challenged, and she does additional care-giving duties for him too. So, while Maya cycles to work in her sari, juggling multiple jobs to pay the bills—including working as a housemaid, doing ironing, gardening, maintaining a chicken pen; she’s even saving up for her own business—Sundar catches frogs for a living, to supply science colleges. He is unable to even attend multiple job interviews she sets up for him, or muffs it.