MALAYALAM FILMMAKERS have been making great cinema for nearly a century; small mercies, the Bollywood crowd and other Northies “discovered” it about 10 years ago, or 90 years later. I’m delighting in Fasil Muhammed’s debut feature Feminichi Fathima (Feminist Fathima), a low-budget, pint-sized revolution that should be made compulsory, tax-free viewing all India. A mattress on which a kid has peed, in a north Kerala village, becomes an instrument for his Muslim mullah dad, Ashraf, to oppress his wife Fathima. But the masterly screenplay allows Fathima to quietly become a feminist, jettisoning a truckload of patriarchal and religious strictures. The film won a slew of awards at the International Film Festival of Kerala, including the FIPRESCI Award for Best International Film, NETPAC Award for Best Malayalam Film, Jury Prize-International, FFSI KR Mohanan Award for Best Debut Feature-Special Mention, and Audience Poll Award. It was also at the Bishkek International Film Festival, Kyrgyzstan.

Seeing how mainstream Indian cinema has been playing the communal card, portraying Muslims mostly as terrorists, mullahs, or “love jihadis”, Malayalam filmmakers have countered these stereotypes with films in which Muslims are also good guys, or victims, and even charming grannies and spunky wives. These include Zakariya’s most charming Sudani from Nigeria, about a village football team that hires a Nigerian footballer, Aamir Pallikal’s Manju Warrier-starrer Ayisha, theme-wise a sort of Malayali Sound of Music set in the Gulf, Blessy’s The Goat’s Life, on Malayalis exploited in the Gulf, and Tharun Moorthy’s Saudi Vellakka, to Feminist Fathima.