“It’s like homecoming for me,” says filmmaker Rima Das of her third Assamese feature film, Bulbul Can Sing , having its world première in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival. Her much-acclaimed sophomore film, Village Rockstars , had premièred there last year in the Discovery section. Like Das, TIFF is not unfamiliar terrain for filmmaker couple Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, or writer-director Vasan Bala. They have had their début features screened there — Dreaming Lhasa (2005) and Peddlers (2012) respectively — and are heading back this year with their second outings. Sarin and Sonam’s The Sweet Requiem will have its world première in the Contemporary World Cinema section, while Bala’s Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota will be the first Indian movie to be showcased in the cult Midnight Madness section, devoted to genre films.
Over the years, TIFF has been known for plurality, diversity and inclusiveness. From big ticket films and future Oscar contenders to rank newcomers and independent voices, and documentaries to shorts, this festival believes in giving equal opportunity to varied cinematic expressions. So if this year Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan and Nandita Das’ Manto represent the more well-known names of Indian cinema in the Special Presentations and Gala section, the others are bringing the indie spirit upfront. Though poles apart in sensibility and expression, the films have a lot in common. Each has been put together with small budgets and big challenges. They are all inspired from subjects close to the filmmakers’ hearts — Tibet for Sarin and Sonam, B grade cinema for Bala, and coming-of-age in rural Assam for Das. And all are led by either non professional actors or rank newcomers. Weekend caught up with them to find out more about their new work.
Mumbai 16/08/2018: Profile shoot of filmmaker Vasan Bala at Versova,in Mumbai on Thursday. Photo: Prashant Waydande.
Vasan Bala
Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota is something Bala had been dreaming of making for the longest time. “It’s about exploring the growing up of the whole world in the ’90s VHS era,” is how he sums it up. It is a unique attempt to mix the Chinese-Japanese martial arts films he grew up loving with those of his favourite Indian filmmakers, Sai Parajape and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. “What if [the characters] Rajaram and Vasu from Katha were martial artistes? It’s about putting that world where nothing happens into my ultra fantasy martial arts world,” he says.
Then he stumbled upon the disease CIP (congenital insensitivity to pain). People who can feel touch but cannot comprehend the threshold of pain. “It’s a fatal anomaly in your system which directly affects your survival. You need pain to stay alive — it’s the first stimulus to know that you are alive,” he says, confessing to being obsessed with the condition, researching, reading and watching documentaries on it. However, though the film addresses it, it is not a serious look at the medical condition. This supposed “superpower” that Bala’s hero is suffering from adds yet another layer to the story. It also becomes a play on how masculinity has come to be defined as being tough enough to not get hurt.
The referencing does not stop at that. The title is also a nod to growing up on a steady diet of Amitabh Bachchan films. “ Jo mard hota hai usko dard nahin hota hai (a true man does not feel pain)” is a recurrent dialogue in Bachchan’s Mard . “Being a genre film, it had to have such an epic title,” says Bala. But genre cinema is not something India is identified with, you quip. “We were always around genre films, but, as academics, never picked up a Joginder film like Ranga Khush . In the West, they had a much more articulate guy like Roger Corman with 100 odd films who gave breaks to Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. There has been a whole culture abroad that celebrated the lack of art, and in fact elevated it to an art form,” he shoots back, wishing he could get Corman to watch his film.
Over a cup of coffee in a Yari Road café, Bala opens the eyes of an uninitiated journalist like yours truly to the magical world of B movies, which is worth a standalone article in itself. Having written and directed Peddlers, and co-written The Lunchbox , Dev D and Raman Raaghav 2.0 , Bala is regarded one of the brightest talents in Bollywood, the seeds of which appear to have been sown early on. Matunga, where he grew up, had a pulpy influence. “During Ganapati, makeshift screens would be put up to show Naseeb , Amar Akbar Anthony …,” he recollects. The first VHS his dad gave him was of Franco Nero-starrer Django . Then there was Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, and later Jackie Chan stepped in as a strong influence. Meanwhile, Doordarshan was in its best phase, showing some of the great films from around the world. “So there was a mish mash of everything — arthouse to action to MGR action films to B movies like Paap Ko Jala Ke Raakh Kar Dunga ,” he looks back at the range he absorbed.
Genre cinema does not just reach out to him as a viewer, but as a filmmaker as well. “It challenges your craft, putting you on a thin line. Chances are you can fall flat on your face.” On the flip side, it is difficult to pitch a genre film and get people to put their money on it, a reason why it took him six years to put Mard Ko Dard... together with producer Ronnie Screwvala.
The film has an intriguing cast. The lead is played by Abhimanyu Dassani, the son of Maine Pyaar Kiya heroine Bhagyashree. Bala saw him in casting director Mukesh Chhabra’s office — a shy, lanky boy. The vulnerability did the trick. On the other hand, he describes his heroine, Radhika Madan, as a force of nature.
Rima Das by Ayush Das
Rima Das
Das is running against time. She has just two days to wrap up the post-production work and send off the DCP (digital cinema package) of Bulbul Can Sing to TIFF. We catch her out of breath on a short telephonic conversation. It is not just the last-minute details that have her distracted, she is also quite overwhelmed by the quick pace with which the film has come together. “I am totally surprised and nervous,” she says, incredulous.
After débuting with Antardrishti ( Man with the Binoculars ) that played at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, it took the self-taught filmmaker four years to make Village Rockstars — the lovely ode to childhood and a young girl’s dream of owning a guitar and starting a band. Bulbul , however, got wrapped up in just a year. Das had already started writing the film when she was finishing the former. “In fact, the last five months were when most of the crucial work got done and 80% of the film was made,” she says.
Rima Das by Ayush Das
She has written, directed and edited the self-funded film and also took on the roles of cinematographer and production designer. Her mother stepped in as co-producer and her cousin, Mallika Das, helped her as production controller through the shooting which happened in Chhaygaon — her village in Assam where she was born and raised. Das is circumspect and describes the film as one about friendship and love, about three friends — two girls and a boy — discovering themselves. “At the centre is Bulbul, a teenage girl fighting her way through love and loss as she figures out who she really is,” she says. Just like Dhunu in Village Rockstars , Bulbul also promises to be free-spirited and rebellious. So gender informs this film too, I ask. Spontaneously, not as something predetermined, replies Das. “I am a woman. It’s about what I think and believe in.”
She considers TIFF lucky. “Last year, they recognised a voice from a remote part of India. Ever since it opened there, Village Rockstars has travelled so much, to 70 festivals around the globe,” she says, hoping for an encore with Bulbul Can Sing .
Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
Sarin and Sonam’s The Sweet Requiem has been long in the making, almost as long as the couple has been running one of India’s leading independent film festivals, Dharamshala International Film Festival. In fact, Sonam started off on the script about seven years ago, around the same time they launched the festival. Predictably, finance has been the biggest roadblock. Finding funds for indies is anyhow a challenge, more so when those films are about “marginalised cultures” and in “unfamiliar languages”. The two teamed up with New York-based producer, Shrihari Sathe, to raise money.
When I talk to Sarin on a long distance call from Dharamshala, they have launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the final phase — marketing, distribution, exhibition and promotion. “We need funds to make the poster and the publicity materials, and to hire a good publicist without whom the film will disappear in the noise of Toronto,” reads their appeal.
Weather was another big challenge while making the film. “It has been shot at 15,000 feet in sub-zero temperatures in Ladakh, and then in the full summer heat of 45 degree Celsius in Delhi; most of it at Majnu Ka Tila,” says Sarin. The duo has been making films together for more than 30 years. They have made several award-winning documentaries and worked on a number of video installations. The majority of their work has focussed on Tibet and has attempted to document, question and reflect on the issues of exile, identity, culture and politics that confront the Tibetan people. It is no different in The Sweet Requiem . “Our film is set among the exile community in India, a group about whose lives and experiences so little is known,” says Sonam.
The film tells the story of Dolkar, a young Tibetan woman living in Delhi who unexpectedly sees a man from her past. It takes her back 18 years, to when she was eight, and long-suppressed memories of her traumatic escape from Tibet come flooding back. Sarin describes the film as an exploration of the themes of memory and guilt, and the unexpected consequences of the choices we make in life. “It is about a search for reconciliation and redemption,” she says.
Jampa Kalsang, one of the most experienced Tibetan actors in exile, plays the key role — of the man from Dolkar’s past. “The role was written with him in mind,” says Sarin. All others in the cast are non-professional actors, including Tenzin Dolker who plays the role of Dolkar.
The Toronto International Film Festival is on from September 6 to 16.
Screen time
International films with an India connect at TIFF
- Prolific British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom’s The Wedding Guest stars Dev Patel as a mysterious British Muslim on a journey across India and Pakistan. He arrives at his destination where a young woman (Radhika Apte) is about to be wed. Also starring Jim Sarbh.
- Dev Patel also stars in debutante Australian director Anthony Maras’ Hotel Mumbai — about the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, specifically the siege of Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel. Also starring Anupam Kher and Armie ‘Winklevoss twins’ Hammer of The Social Network fame and British Iranian actress from Homeland , Nazanin Boniadi.
- Mia Hansen-Love’s Maya is about a French war correspondent who heads to India after months of being held hostage in Syria. Newbie Aarshi Banerjee débuts as Maya.
