Best movies like Shankhachil

Bollywood film about the famous courtesan of the title. Aishwarya Rai stars in the lead role. The film is directed by J.P. Dutta and also stars Shabana Azmi, Sunil Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan, Divya Dutta, Himani Shivpuri and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. A remake of the original directed by Muzaffar Ali and released in 1981.

Vasthuhara (Malayalam: വാസ്തുഹാര English: The Dispossessed) is a Malayalam social film by the late G. Aravindan which looks into the lives of partition refugees from East Bengal to West Bengal.

In 1947, Lord Mountbatten assumes the post of last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people, living upstairs at the house which was the home of British rulers, whilst 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants lived downstairs.

Set in post-colonial India, Qissa tells the story of Umber Singh, a Sikh who is forced to flee his village due to ethnic cleansing at the time of partition in 1947. Umber decides to fight fate and builds a new home for his family. When Umber marries his youngest child Kanwar to Neeli, a girl of lower caste, the family is faced with the truth of their identities; as individual ambitions and destinies collide in a struggle with eternity.

The films tells the story of an un-named Indian Muslim, who helps illegal refugees from both India and Pakistan to cross the border through the Great Rann of Kutch. The film is attributed to have been inspired by the short story "Love Across the Salt Desert" by Keki N. Daruwalla.

Based in the backdrop of 19th century Bengal, Rosogolla is a story of a young man with a romantic heart and brilliant mind — Nabin Chandra Das, who had set his heart on making the most delicious sweet of all time for his wife, Khirodmoni. Rosogolla is a story of the many trial and tribulations in his journey of making something unique, of innocent love, struggle and human aspiration for novelty.

Lot leads his people to a fertile valley adjacent to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, hotbeds of vice and corruption ruled by the merciless Queen Bera. When Lot orders a dam to be busted in order to prevent the destruction of the cities by the attacking Helamites, the queen, in gratitude, allows Lot's people to settle in Sodom. Soon, however, the veneer of civilization begins crumbling as Lot and the Hebrews become corrupted by the Sodomites.

Located in the backwaters of a dam, Sita Parvata is an island slowly submerging due to the rains. The government succeeds in evacuating the residents by giving them compensation for the properties they own. The village temple priest Duggajja, his son Ganapa, and his daughter-in-law Nagi find it impossible to leave their homeland and make a living with the meager compensation given by the government. On the island, they are important people, but outside, they would be one among hundreds of families struggling to make a living. The film narrates the struggles of the family and how ultimately in the end they manage to continue life on the island.

It's 1947 and the borderlines between India and Pakistan are being drawn. A young girl bears witnesses to tragedy as her ayah is caught between the love of two men and the rising tide of political and religious violence.

A young mute girl from Pakistan loses herself in India with no way to head back. A devoted man with a magnanimous spirit undertakes the task to get her back to her motherland and unite her with her family.

The film begins in 1857, when India was ruled by the British East India Company. Mangal Pandey is a sepoy, a soldier of Indian origin, in the army of the East India Company. Pandey is fighting in the Anglo-Afghan Wars and saves the life of his British commanding officer, William Gordon. Gordon is indebted to Pandey and a strong friendship develops between them, transcending both rank and race.

A few political goons, disguised as Muslims, cause trouble at the temple and kill Raghuraman's family. Later, Raghuraman joins an extremist group and decides to avenge his family's death.

In 1826 British-ruled India, the secret Cult of Thugee demonstrates their worship of their goddess, Kali, by the mutilation and mass murder of thousands of Indians while pirating the shipments of the British East-Indian Tea Company. As the British military leaders play down the implications of the piracy and disappearances, a lone captain realizes that they are not just coincidence and sets out to uncover the source of the deviltry, at the risk of his career. Based on history.

Set during one of India’s main peasant risings, the Telangana insurrection between 1945 and 1951 in the pre-Independence state of Hyderabad, the Bengali director’s first feature tells the story of Chander’s best-known novel (Jab Khet Jaage (1948)) from the peasant’s point of view. A young peasant, Ramiah, rebels against the corrupt rule of the nizam, and when his girlfriend has to submit to the potentate’s sexual coercion, Ramiah leaves. He befriends a Marxist activist (the rising was CPI-inspired) and participates in the Independence struggle.

The tragic story of the beautiful daughter of a middle-class refugee family from East Pakistan. Neeta, the protagonist, sacrifices everything for her unappreciative family.

A bus is setting out to Calcutta from a village in West Bengal. Meenakshi Iyer, who is from a strict orthodox Hindu background, is leaving to Chennai for her husband, with her young child, after the vacation with her parents. By chance, she gets a co-passenger who is also to Chennai, Rajah, a photographer, introduced by one of the friends of her father. During the journey they build a good relationship. But a Hindu-Muslim communal riot sets out in the meantime, in some areas they had to travel. Then she comes to face the fact that Rajah is not a Hindu but a Muslim whose real name is Jehangir. Even though she curses herself at that time while some Hindu fanatics evade their bus she saves him introducing as Mr. Iyer. But they have to reach their destination while the other passengers know Rajah as no one else but Mr. Iyer.

Sangam is a Pakistani Urdu film released in 1964, directed by Zahir Raihan starring Rosy Samad, Khalil, Haroon Rashid and Sumita Devi. This is the first full-length colour movie made in entire Pakistan. This was the fourth film by Zahir Raihan (1935-1972) who later went on to direct more films in Urdu and Bengali during the 1960s. Zahir Raihan became one of the most important filmmakers of East Pakistan, which later became Bangladesh in 1971. Although Sangam was an Urdu film, but most of the cast, playback artistes and crew were from the Bengali-speaking Eastern province.

Every year hundreds of people - mostly women - are attacked with acid in Pakistan. Follow several of these survivors, their fight for justice, and a Pakistani plastic surgeon who has returned to his homeland to help them restore their faces and their lives.

Refugees from East Pakistan flee West Pakistani soldiers aboard a rickety steamboat.

Dr. Rajeev and his wife SUJATA come from Dubai to participate in the last rituals of Sujata's friend and ex love affair who was a Sufi. The events which happen when they land in the village forms the rest of the plot.

Shongram (struggle) is a romantic drama set during the 1971 liberation struggle of Bangladesh. A British Bengali on his death bed is interviewed by a daring London reporter, where four decades later, Karim is able to recall and finally share his past. We are transported to 1971, when Bangladesh was still East Pakistan and a young Karim (a Muslim) is in love with a beautiful Asha (a Hindu). The peaceful village life is suddenly interrupted by war and Karim must grow up fast to survive in an era where mass killings and abduction was common. He must also carry out his duty and revenge before he can finally search for Asha.

A Hindu doctor with dementia and a Muslim auto rickshaw driver form an unlikely friendship as they cross India in search of the doctor's childhood home.

The film portrays the childhood and political inception of the father of the nation of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The story-line apprises his outgrowth as the greatest Bengali of all time.

Sunny is struggling to make a living in the Bollywood industry. He takes a job as assistant director (the operative word being assistant) for an American documentary filmmaking team, but during filming in the Indian Rajasthan province he is kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists – and detained in a small village in Pakistan. The situation is delicate, but the villagers share Sunny's passion for Bollywood film, and little by little the hostage and the guardians come to understand each other. Eventually, Sunny lays a plan to escape with the help of the villagers.

The movie chronicles the life of Khadeeja, a married muslim woman confined within the four walls of the household, forced to conceal her desires in the name of religious and societal norms. When fate brings her to an abandoned life, she chooses a different way of financially and sexually liberating herself- to be a sex worker; soon to realize that her soul is still dissatisfied. Finding a new way of hope, she decides to give back to the forces that pushed her to live an orphaned life of humiliation and misery.

In the days leading up to Partition, a Hindu woman is abducted by a Muslim man. Soon, she finds herself not only forced into marriage, but living in a new country as the borders between India and Pakistan are drawn

Tensions run high near the border of British India, which is about to be partitioned with a new country called Pakistan. Sikhs living in this border town have heard numerous stories of Muslims killing, raping, and looting other Sikhs, Hindus, and Christians, and many of whom are their friends and relatives. Enraged at the loss of law and order, they plan their own attack on a trainful of Muslims leaving British India. The train is overcrowded with tens and thousands of migrating passengers, who are even perched on the windows and seated on the roof of this train. The plot is to tear the bridge down when the train is on it, and no one will dare stop these men to carry out this horrific task

A family must come to grips with its culture, its faith, and the brutal political changes entering its small-town world.

During the British rule in India, the families of Nawab Badruddin and Gulshan Rai in Delhi are so close that they virtually share the same house. Husn Bano, the daughter of the Nawab, has an affair with a young man named Hamid. When she gets pregnant, her lover abandons her.

After an old college friend offers him a job at an iron foundry, the upright and honest Ishwar leaves a shanty town on the outskirts of Calcutta where he lives with a group of refugees from East Bengal. With plans to forge a solid living for himself, sister Sita and Abhiram, an orphaned boy he offers a home to, Ishwar is accused of selling out and deserting his people.

There are lot of things that bind India and Pakistan together and their tragic history is definitely one of them. A history which changed the lives of millions...a history which re-wrote the destinies of millions. Ishq Ke Parindey is a love story of Indo-Pak love birds – Sheen and Faiz who protect the flame of their sacred love from hatred and violence. An innocent and beautiful Pakistani girl, Sheen arrives in Lucknow along with her family. It is in the royal city of Nawabs that she meets her soul mate – Faiz. Love blossoms for both of them and what follows is a deadly fight against their families. Ishq Ke Parindey is a soulful journey of Sheen and Faiz’s love story.

The Sunshine is about a young refugee (Armstrong) who flees from the war-torn northern Sri Lanka and embarks on a perilous journey through India, Nepal, Thailand towards an uncertain destination, leaving his childhood sweetheart on the shores that foam blood. The film looks back at the perils faced by Armstrong, a Sri Lankan Tamil, along with his epic odyssey from conflict and violence-ridden homeland, towards far corners of the world risking death, detention and deportation over the lands and seas. The Sunshine will explore the ultimate universal question how and why people get prepared to risk everything. The movie will tell the story of human struggle and not just merely make a political statement. Director Leena Manimekalai says, The Sunshine is unique and personal because it has the autobiographical touch of her friend and writer Shobasakthi.

Mandip Saha’s directorial debut ‘Ishkabon’ is a political drama on the Maoism issue in West Bengal against the backdrop of a politically turbulent time. The feature-length Bengali film is shot in the picturesque Jhargram.

After the partition of India in 1947, Shashikanta's family, like millions of other Hindu families of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), faced the dilemma of whether to migrate from the land in which they have been living for centuries. But Shashikanta Sengupta, an eccentric lawyer, stubbornly refuses to leave his motherland. Widower Shashikanta has two children, Minoti and Bidyut. Anuprava Devi is an affectionate old aunt who lives with the family. The family has a house in Narail, a small provincial town on the bank of the Chitra river. Some Muslim neighbors eye Shashaikanta's house. But the family refuse to migrate. Shashikanta's children Minoti and Bidyut are friends with the neighboring Muslim children- Badal, Salma and Nazma. Minoti and Badal become more than friends. The children grow up.

Gouranga, a young man in 1960s rural Bengal, embarks on a journey where he encounters not only the local myths about a supernatural presence, but also his own demons which were buried in his past. The film was in the list of TOP 10 Recommended Movies of NFDC Film Bazaar 2023. It also won the Film Bazaar Recommends Award in the Viewing Room Category.