A thriller in Tamil language has been chosen as India's official entry to the Best Foreign Language Film at next year's Oscars. Sudha G Tilak writes on an unusually gritty crime drama on police brutality and corruption.
A homeless young man is walking down a street after watching a late night movie in Guntur, a town in Andhra Pradesh in southern India. A police patrol halts by and asks his name.
"Afzal", the man replies.
"al-Qaeda? Isis?" sneers a policeman.
"I'm a Tamil migrant worker," he replies not comprehending, and is rudely rounded off to the police station for unending torture in custody.
'New language'
This scene from Tamil film Visaranai (Interrogation), India's official entry to the Oscars this year, sets the tone for this gritty crime drama on human rights violations.
The film won the Amnesty International Italia Award for focusing on human rights violations after it premiered in the Orrizonti section at the Venice International Festival this year, the first ever for a Tamil language film.
Visaranai is set in the border area of Andhra Pradesh where four innocent migrant workers from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu are callously picked up.
The four are tortured into taking the rap for a crime they have not committed as the police find it easier to make scapegoats of the poor than searching for the real
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