'A thoughtful, moving and, above all, important exploration of the power of theatre to impact a generation and incite a revolution.'

— Sonia Faleiro, author of Beautiful Thing

'Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! would be suitable for a range of courses, from introductory to advanced. Although it focuses on a theater group in contemporary urban India, the film should not be limited to a course or unit on India. It offers a personal and emotional case study of colonialism and its legacies in a postcolonial nation-state. It shows institutionalized ethnic and gender discrimination and indigenous, community-based activism. It reveals the power of performance to transform life beyond the theater, and it demonstrates, like the cinema of Jean Rouch, that the most effective ethnographic films are truly collaborative.'

— Christian S. Hammons, in General Anthropology [Download PDF]

'…despite the seriousness of the topic, I enjoyed watching this film.'

— Anthropologist Lavanya M Proctor

'I highly recommend this film to educators. It flows easily enough for an introductory anthropology course with a variety of discussion topics. It is also detailed enough for those upper-division anthropology courses that might want to concern themselves with a case study in systems of “power-knowledge.” I recommend this film for classes in Visual Anthropology as a model of perspective and voice. The film is a relevant interlocutor of the lasting effects of colonialism and it sets the standard for that type of ethnographic relay.'

— Anthropology student Dick Powis

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