Hichki

Hichki (2018), released for Russian audiences as «Я – препод», is a Hindi comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Siddharth P. Malhotra directs, and Rani Mukerji carries the film as a woman who refuses to let a neurological condition decide her career.

Naina Mathur has wanted to teach since childhood, but Tourette Syndrome — the sudden vocal tics and twitches — has gotten her rejected by school after school. An elite academy finally hires her, then hands her class 9F: fourteen kids bused in from the slums under a quota, written off by everyone else on campus. They open by mocking the very tic she can't control. Her answer is not discipline but the example of someone who stopped being ashamed of her own body.

The premise borrows from the American film Front of the Class and the true story of teacher Brad Cohen, yet the Bollywood version reroutes it into India's fight over class and access to education. Mukerji took the part to end a long break from acting, and her restraint keeps the movie from tipping into easy uplift — it sits instead with a grown woman making peace with what won't go away. Stream «Я – препод» (2018) online on iFILM.