In honor of International Women’s Day, the Netflix India Twitter account drew special attention to six upcoming projects with strong women characters, including some new photos. The account tweeted about the recently announced films Kathal, Thar, and Qala, as well as the upcoming second seasons of Masaba Masaba and She. Most exciting was a tweet about the forthcoming series Mai, which was announced a couple of years ago and hasn’t gotten much attention since. All of the titles were mentioned as “coming soon,” so here’s hoping that’s true.
Netflix recently brought together a bunch of the women filmmakers and actors responsible for the streamer’s biggest Indian hits to film a promotional video for Netflix and take questions from the media. Friend of Access Bollywood Suchin Mehrotra was at the event reporting for The Hindu, and Anupama Chopra recorded a video interview for Film Companion. Check it out:
As if this wasn’t enough, yesterday Netflix revealed that Alia Bhatt’s first foray into Hollywood will be a role in the Netflix Original film Heart of Stone, starring Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan. Exciting stuff!
I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s big announcement of more than 40 new Indian movies, TV series, and specials that Netflix plans to release in 2021. Many of these titles were previously announced — I wrote about a number of them for my 2021 Netflix preview for What’s On Netflix — but some are brand new. I’ll go into detail about each of the different categories, but first check out this general teaser video Netflix India released:
First up is movies. Today’s announcement includes 13 titles. Netflix had already announced a March 26 premiere date for Pagglait and released teaser videos for Dhamaka and Jagame Thandhiram. The Karan Johar-produced anthology film which had been called The Other is renamed Ajeeb Daastaans. Three films that I previewed in my piece for What’s On Netflix mentioned above were not included in today’s announcement: Cobalt Blue, Desert Dolphin, and Freedom. Here are all the movies included in today’s press release (Hindi-language, unless otherwise specified) with links to their Netflix entries where available, followed by another video specifically focused on Original films:
The bulk of today’s announcement was made up of fiction TV series, including 9 brand new shows and new seasons of 6 returning series. Bombay Begums already has a March 8 premiere date. The series starring Madhuri Dixit Nene that was rumored to be called Actress is officially titled Finding Anamika. Baahubali: Before the Beginning was conspicuously absent from today’s announcement, as were updates on new seasons for Hashmukh and Selection Day. Here are all of the TV series mentioned in the press release, followed by a video featuring highlights from those series:
Finally, Netflix announced 13 non-fiction movies, series, and stand-up comedy specials. No word on a second season of Indian Matchmaking, but The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives and The Big Day are both returning. Here are the Unscripted Originals coming to Netflix in 2021.
Over the weekend, the Twitter account Cinema Rare tweeted a thread of Netflix Originals from India coming to the service in the next year or so. The only one with a confirmed release date is the anthology movie Ghost Stories, from the filmmakers behind Bombay Talkies and Lust Stories. It premieres December 31. I found links for nine of the twenty-two Netflix Original movies and series Cinema Rare mentioned, in case you’d like to add them to your Netflix queue:
Netflix recently brought together a bunch of the women filmmakers and actors responsible for the streamer’s biggest Indian hits to film a promotional video for Netflix and take questions from the media. Friend of Access Bollywood Suchin Mehrotra was at the event reporting for The Hindu, and Anupama Chopra recorded a video interview for Film Companion. Check it out: