Film archive, 2025

Don’t Tell Mother

Director Anoop LOKKUR

1Festival entries

★Avg. rating

Occasionally mischievous brothers, a mother who handles all the housework, a father who appears at crucial moments, and a grandmother who lives nearby and offers help—Aakash and Adi’s family seems perfectly ordinary. Yet Anoop Lokkur’s debut feature Don’t Tell Mother quietly questions whether what we consider ‘ordinary’ is natural or even the norm. Their mother Lakshmi wants to start a small business, but her plans for independence from her in-laws are repeatedly thwarted by her father-in-law’s stubbornness and her husband’s indecision. Aakash’s desire to learn karate is dismissed with familiar refrain: focus on studying instead. Recognizing the lack of value in trivial requests, no longer tolerating the violence long taken for granted, and expressing gratitude for familiar care—all of these are difficult to do. This is a heartwarming film that may come to mind unexpectedly, while chewing on cashew nuts.