jury showcase

Gauri has a yen for the unusual and it shows in her choice of subjects . She gave Sridevi a great comeback vehicle in the shape of English Vinglish, which was about a middle aged housewife's struggle to find acceptance in a fast-changing world. Her next, Dear Zindagi, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Alia Bhatt, is supposed to be a game changer as well.

Kabir Khan burst into scene with the darkly humorous Kabul Express. He has been a journalist and a documentary filmmaker before and uses his training from both elements to make films that may be fiction but resonate with real world stories. He knows the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent like the back of his hands and his films speak of hope, of shared culture and ultimately a cessation of hostilities between India and it's neighbours.

He's the avant garde filmmaker who redefined the way we look at onscreen romance. He pointed out that falling in love with your best friend is a damn good idea. He's grown over the years to explore the edges of extra-marital love and having a relook at the institution of marriage through his films and making us comfortable with taboo topics like homosexuality. Thanks to shows like Koffee With Karan, he's become a household name and has the privilege of ruling both small and big films.

Surrogate motherhood comes with its own emotional complications and that was borne out nicely in Meghna Gulzar’s debut film Filhaal. She one sensitive filmmaker who believes in being frank to both sides of the argument, as was seen in her last outing Talvar, her searing investigation of the Aarushi Talwar case. The film Rashomon like examined the double murder through different angles without taking sides and left the judgment in the hands of the audience. We hope to see many more seminal films from her in future!

Hers is a face that defines Indian womanhood. She can play any Indian woman from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and manage to look the part. She doesn't bow to conventions and has done roles as diverse as playing a pregnant woman hell bent on revenge to portraying Silk Smitha, as also Geeta Bali on screen. Over the years, she's fast emerging as a gold standard in acting.

She burst on the scene with the delicious inside take on Bollywood, Luck By Chance and followed it up with the brilliant bildungsroman Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Her last offering, Dil Dhadakne Do offered a sassy take on the dysfunctional Indian family. She's also a imaginative scenarist in her own right, the edgy screenplay of Talaash, which she wrote with Reema Kagti, being proof of that...