| Searching for Sheela | |
| Director: | Shakun Batra |
| Producer: | Karan Johar Apoorva Mehta Somen Mishra |
| Music: | Benedict Taylor Naren Chandavarkar |
| Editing: | Nitesh Bhatia |
| Studio: | Dharmatic Jouska Films |
| Distributor: | Netflix |
| Runtime: | 58 minutes |
| Country: | India |
| Language: | English |
Searching for Sheela is a 2021 Indian documentary film created, directed[1] and executive produced by Shakun Batra.[2] The film traces the life of Ma Anand Sheela,[3] who was the spokesperson of the Rajneesh movement, when she returns to India for the first time in 35 years.[4] The film is produced by Karan Johar's Dharmatic Entertainment and was released on Netflix on 22 April 2021.[5]
Sayan Ghosh of The Hindu noted that the film "barely manages to scratch the surface, leaving bare a hollow exterior, despite concerted efforts to conceal it within a shiny facade."[7] Tatsam Mukherjee from Firstpost called the film a "crime against journalism" and "so tremendously low on insight and curiosity about someone as fascinating as Sheela that it seems like a criminal waste of an opportunity."[8] Saibal Chatterjee said that the film is "an extended, circuitous version of a Koffee With Karan episode that ferrets out nothing of import."[9]
Writing for Hindustan Times, Rohan Naahar opined that the documentary is a "Dharma-style, surface-level profile of Ma Anand Sheela" that "brushes aside everything that is interesting about her in favour of fluff."[10] Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in wrote: "Unfolding mostly as a very long out-take from Wild Wild Country, the puff piece seeks to project [Sheela] as an enigma and a survivor [..] but the film actually comes across as an attempt to follow an entertaining yarn all the way to its last, fraying thread."[11]