Dir| Vishali Sinha | Doc 2026 92’
If documentaries are supposed to spark conversations, Give It a Shot is arriving armed with a megaphone, a wicked sense of humour, and perhaps the world’s most overdue question: why has contraception been almost entirely women’s business for so long?
Premiering at the London Indian Film Festival on 14 July, Give It a Shot dives into the fascinating, frustrating, and surprisingly funny world of male contraception. It’s a story packed with ambitious scientists, willing guinea pigs, sceptics, and enough awkward conversations to make any family WhatsApp group spontaneously combust.
The film’s focus is a group of characters and their bid to market and male contraception – linked back to RISUG the Indian-developed long-lasting, non-hormonal and reversible male contraceptive. What makes the documentary so engaging is its refusal to become a dry science lecture. So full marks for that if you’re fed up with being blinded by science! Instead, it treats its subject with warmth, wit, and genuine curiosity. The film understands that masculinity, medicine, politics, and relationships are hopelessly tangled together—and finds comedy in that very human mess without ever trivialising the stakes.
There’s something delightfully refreshing about watching men grapple with injections, hormones, side effects, and reproductive responsibility—the very issues women have been navigating for decades. The film never slips into finger-wagging territory; instead, it invites audiences to laugh, think, squirm a little, and perhaps reconsider long-held assumptions about who carries the contraceptive burden.
Visually energetic and driven by compelling personal stories, Give It a Shot balances scientific optimism with healthy scepticism. It celebrates innovation while acknowledging that changing biology may be easier than changing culture.
At a time when conversations around gender roles are evolving faster than pharmaceutical approvals, this documentary lands with impeccable timing. Whether the future of male contraception arrives next year or another decade from now, Give It a Shot makes a persuasive case that the conversation itself can no longer be postponed.
Smart, entertaining, and unexpectedly crowd-pleasing, Give It a Shot is what the doctor ordered – and exactly the sort of documentary that sends audiences out of the cinema arguing—in the best possible way. Expect laughter, lively debates, and perhaps a few men leaving the theatre quietly wondering whether equality might finally involve rolling up their own sleeves.
LONDON INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2026