When an Indian folk singer is accused of singing lyrics that encouraged a young man to commit suicide, he is held for trial indefinitely in India’s meandering court system. [ Court credits: Dir: Chaitanya Tamhane/ Usha Bane, Vivek Gomber, Pradeep Joshi/ 116 min/ Drama/ Law & Liberty, Incompetent Government]
External Reviews
“There are courtroom dramas, and then there’s Court, Chaitanya Tamhane’s impressive debut, which flays alive India’s justice system while commenting on class, education and access to power. Managing to be both extremely rational and extremely humane, the film works so well thanks to an intelligent, superbly understated script and a feel for naturalism that extends beyond mere performance…an engrossing piece of cinema.”
–Variety
“In a Mumbai courtroom with lethargic ceiling fans and walls of peeling blue paint, Kamble’s case progresses inch by inch. When one hearing ends, the next is scheduled for a month or more later, so that even the presentation of the patently thin evidence against him is stretched out over the course of a year…two-thirds of India’s four million prisoners are ‘under trials,’ according to Amnesty International.”
–The New Yorker
“Mumbai’s Chaitanya Tamhane emerges as one of the world’s most accomplished and promising film-makers under 30 with his quietly steely legal drama Court, a bluntly-titled chronicle of politically-motivated injustice.”
–The Hollywood Reporter
“Court is a searing, unmissable film, and is one of the best you will see this year.”
–The Indian Express
How to See It
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“India has one of the highest pre-trial detainee populations in the world. Nearly two-thirds of the country’s prisoners are ‘undertrials’. These include men and women presumed to be innocent in the eyes of the law but who are in jail for months and even years waiting for the law to take its course. Some have even been detained for periods longer than what a formal conviction would have brought.”
–Amnesty International
“India’s Supreme Court ordered the country’s notoriously overcrowded jails to free all inmates who have served half their maximum term without trial, in a landmark ruling with potential implications for hundreds of thousands of prisoners.”
–The Express Tribune
Similar Problems in U.S. and Other Countries
“About 1,500 of the 10,000 inmates on Rikers have been there for more than a year without being convicted of a crime, and 400 have languished behind bars for more than two years without trials, according to the mayor’s office.”
–Huffington Post
“The map shows slightly more prisoners awaiting trial in China than in the United States. The third largest population of prisoners awaiting trial live in India. The number of prisoners awaiting trial per ten thousand people living there was 4 in China, 16 in the United States and 2 in India.”
–Worldmapper.org
“As a result of these high pretrial detention rates, 10 to 40 percent of the entire incarcerated population is behind bars without a conviction in most countries in the Americas. The highest proportion of pretrial detainees among the total prison population is in Bolivia (83.6 percent), followed by Paraguay (71.2 percent), Haiti (67.7 percent), Venezuela (66.2 percent), Dominican Republic (64.7 percent), Uruguay (64.6 percent), Panama (60.8 percent), Peru (58.6 percent), Guatemala (54.4 percent), Argentina (52.6 percent), and Honduras (50.1 percent).”
–Quarterly Americas
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
–Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution