Threatened with censor cuts before its release in 2007, Bappaditya Bandopadhyay's controversial feature film Kaal (Our Time) explores the disturbing world of human trafficking in India. The film focuses on four women: Itu, Fatima, Soma, and a young widow, each of whom falls prey to Ratan (Rudranil Ghosh), a sweet-talking agent whose prime motive is to smuggle them out of the village in which they live and sell them to sex traders in the city. Although initially terrified by the life of prostitution they have been forced into, each woman begins to accept her fate as the allure of money and city life take hold. In the wider context of Indian politics, Kaal is a critical commentary on human displacement and the effects of globalization. In an interview the director declared: "I do want my films to look like news footage at times and try sincerely to shoot a fiction in the way one would shoot a documentary. Most of the characters and incidents in my films are from the real life. I deliberately use the music and the backdrop to refer to a certain culture which is becoming marginal day by day." Awards/Festivals: Cairo International Film Festival, 2007; Sao Paulo International Film Festival, 2007; Stockholm International Film Festival, 2007; Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, 2007; Singapore International Film Festival, 2008.