How Two Oscars Breakouts Are Charting New Paths for Indian Cinema at TIFF with ‘Dorothy’ and ‘Termite’ — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Guneet Monga Kapoor premieres "Dorothy," a Tamil-language gangster western directed by Karthik Subbaraj and set in 1990s rural Tamil Nadu, at TIFF — her first project since Jio Studios acquired a majority stake in Sikhya Entertainment earlier this year.
- Shaunak Sen unveils "Termite," his fiction directorial debut — a poetic short about a Delhi exterminator shot in just five days — and is editing "The Delicate," a documentary about vascular surgery he began after being diagnosed with kidney cancer shortly after the 2023 Oscars.
- KiteRabbit, the production company Sen runs with Aman Mann, is co-producing a documentary with Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Jim Wilson, directed by Archana Phadke — a project Phoenix initiated after becoming a fan of "All That Breathes."
- Subbaraj's previous nine features, including "Mercury" and "Jigarthanda," went straight to theatrical release, so "Dorothy" marks his first major-festival premiere; the 41-day principal shoot wrapped in rural Madurai in November–December 2025.
- "Dorothy" stars Keerthy Suresh alongside relative newcomers Rishikanth and Sananth — a deliberate departure from the South Indian superstars Subbaraj typically casts — with a score by Ilaiyaraja; Monga Kapoor said the Jio partnership deal took a year to close while the film was already in production.
- Monga Kapoor and Subbaraj first met in 2016 on the awards circuit for "Visaaranai" and reconnected nearly a decade later when she was building Sikhya's slate with Jio and heard his pitch for "Dorothy."
Why it matters: Monga Kapoor's first project after the Jio acquisition being a Tamil gangster western — not the Hindi commercial fare her Mumbai base would suggest — signals Sikhya is using its new studio backing to back regionally rooted, festival-bound cinema. Subbaraj gets his first major-fest premiere after nine direct-to-theatrical features, and Sen's pivot from documentary to fiction despite a cancer diagnosis that reshaped his slate shows independent Indian production can now travel along multiple financing paths simultaneously.
Ask SkimNews
