Channel Four’s annual Indian film season, which has been showcasing the best of the country’s cinema over the past 30 years, is due to return on 7 September.

The nine films across nine weeks will be a mix of mainstream and independent productions which have been curated by Nasreen Munni Kabir, a British Indian television producer, director, author and former governor on the board of the British Film Institute (BFI).

The festival will kick off this Monday 7 September at 11.35pm with Jallikattu in which a butcher named Kalan Varkey faces a lot of trouble when a buffalo escapes from the slaughterhouse and wreaks havoc across his remote village in Kerala.

This is then followed by Gully Boy on Sunday 13 September at 11.55pm, a Bollywood hit based on a true story which follows Murad, a rapper from Dharavi who struggles to voice the social issues surrounding him until he meets a local rapper who helps him break free of the class divide which permeates his life.

On Tuesday 15 September at 1.25am, we return to South India with Kattumaram (Catamaran) which sees a young woman defy the expectations of her local fishing community and conservative uncle as she develops a relationship with a woman who has come to teach at a local school following a recent tsunami.

Returning to the city, The Lift Boy is a coming-of-age drama about a lower middle-class Mumbai family and a down on his luck student who is forced to take his father’s place as a lift operator in a luxury apartment block.

Audiences will then travel back in time with 1976 film Manthan in tribute to the celebrated actor and playwright Girish Karnad who passed away in 2019.

Produced courtesy of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, the film follows the progress of a team who set out to start a milk co-op in rural Gujarat, an honourable crusade that stirs up violent caste clashes along the way.

Continuing with the village setting, Article 15 is named after the article in India’s constitution which makes discrimination a criminal offence. The film tackles the caste system, abuse and corruption when a city cop is sent to a small village to investigate the death of two ‘lower caste' women. 

Raazi, a thriller based on the true story of an Indian female spy who risked everything to go undercover in the lead up to the Indo-Pakistani war in 1971 is next on the schedule and won five prizes at India’s annual Filmfare Awards, including one for female director, Meghna Gulzar.

We’re then treated to Marathi drama Naal which follows Chiatanya, a lively eight-year-old boy living on the banks of a river in a rural Maharashtrian village  who becomes obsessed with meeting his birth mother after an uncle visits from a neighbouring village and tells him that he is adopted.

The concluding film, Aijaz Khan’s Hamid is set amid the political unrest in Kashmir and tells the story of eight-year-old Hamid whose father goes missing, mother rejects him and discovers the number ‘786’ which connects him to a soldier fighting on the frontline.

Every film except Manthan is a network premiere and will be aired on either Film4, Channel 4 or All 4. Four of the films will also be available for catch-up viewing after transmission.

Here is what's in store

JALIKATTU (2019, Network Premiere, Monday 7/9 at 23.35, Film4 channel, available on catch up via All 4)

GULLY BOY (2019, Network Premiere, Sunday 13/9 at 23.55, Channel 4)

KATTUMARAM (CATAMARAN) (2019, Network Premiere, Tuesday 15/9 at 01.25, Channel 4, available on catch up via All 4)

THE LIFT BOY (2019, Network Premiere, date TBC, Channel 4, available on catch up via All 4)

MANTHAN (1976, date TBC, Channel 4, available on catch up via All 4)

ARTICLE 15 (2019, Network Premiere, date TBC, Channel 4)

RAAZI (2019, Network Premiere, date TBC, Channel 4)

NAAL  (2019, Network Premiere, date TBC,Channel 4)

HAMID (2019, Network Premiere, date TBC, Channel 4)