The mood in the movies this week is distinctly experimental and largely encouraging. Dysfunctional protagonists lead the bright pack this week. In Ashwin Chowdhary's Siskiyan Neha Dhupia thinks a visitor in their house raped her during the Guajarat riots.

In award-winning Assamese director Jahnu Baruah's intriguing Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara Anupam Kher goes through life thinking he was responsible for Mahatma Gandhi's death. It's a role of a life-time for Kher, perhaps his biggest opportunity to prove himself as an actor since his debut in Saraansh.

The fact that he has his close friend Yash Chopra to back the project gives a delicious theme to the dream. With their sharp marketing acumen Yashraj Films will make Anupam's dream accessible in places where a film of this nature wouldn't have any reach including mutiple award-winning director Jahnu Baruah's home state Assam.

Baruah incidentally is the eighth new director in our movie theatres in two weeks, after Aaditya Datt (Aashiq Banaya Aapne), Sanjay Dayma (Ramji Londonwale), Kannika Verma (Dansh), Siddharth Raj Anand (Salaam Namaste ), Ruchi Narain (Kal), Bappaditya Roy (Sau Jhooth Ek Sach) and Romesh Sharma (Dil Jo Bhi Kahey). He has made a huge name for himself in Assamese cinema. His debut in Hindi could be the beginning of a new phase for any reputed filmmaker from the Eastern region....Neither the legendary Satyajit Ray (Shatranj Ke Khiladi) nor his foremost discipline from Bengal Rituparno Ghosh( Raincoat) have been able to establish themselves in Bollywood as yet.

Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara isn't a typical Bollywood film. What's bound to give it a mellow and movind edge is the father-daughter relationship, with Urmila Matondkar pitching in sincerely as Kher's screen-daughter.

Father-daughter films are rare in our cinema. We had Anubhav Sinha's Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai and Vikram Bhatt's Aetbaar doing the needful. With limited success.

Ashwini Chowdhary's Siskiyan isn't your average time-pass entertainer. Set against the backdrop of the Gujarat communal riots, Chowdhary whose earlier film Dhoop went into the theme of war and deliverance, has this time sought to adapt Roman Polanski's film Death & The Maiden into a contemporary Indian communal setting. The same plot line was seen two weeks ago in Kannika Verma's Dansh.

Considering the rather hostile attitude to most films on the communal divide(barring Anil Sharma's Gadar: Ek Prem Kahani) one wonders if Siskiyan would be able to do what Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara attempts to do in a far more gentle way: probe the polarization of individuals and communities on various levels in post-Indpendent India.

The third release this week features our loud -mouthed mehmaan Meera from Pakistan with , of all people, Lucky Ali. While Meera's tall claims about her star stature translated into zilch at the boxoffice in Nazar, Lucky proved anything but lucky in his desperate attempts to face the camera in Sur and Kaante.

Shouldn't he have learnt his lesson from that other singer trying to be an actor, namely Sonu Nigam (Jaani Dushman, Love In Nepal)?