The Mumbai Film Festival has always been known for showcasing new talent. Kanika Sharma speaks to four young filmmakers who are earning applause in the non-competitive section, New Faces of Indian Cinema
Kuttram Kadithal
Teenkahon (Three Obsessions)
“Three stories on obsession in the Bengali life” is how director Bauddhayan Mukherji describes his film. “Each story is a story of a male protagonist’s obsession. It is stretched over 100 years of Bengali life and as last year, Indian cinema completed 100 years, we have merged that as well,” shares Mukherji.
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Teenkahon is a triptych on obsession
The film, while shooting the stories set in different periods, mirrors the technological innovations of that time. For instance, over the shoulder angles had become prevalent in the 1960s, a technique Mukherji has ingrained in his way of telling the story of that time. Bengali writers Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Syed Mustafa Siraj have written two of the stories while one is his work. The film stars Dhritiman Chaterji, Rituparna Sengupta, Ashish Vidyarthi, and Sabyasachi Chakraborty.
Bauddhayan Mukherji
Kuttram Kadithal (The Punishment)
An intriguing watch, Bramma G, its director shares, “It is about a young newly married teacher who marries against the wish of her parents.
The thriller has a woman protagonist in the lead
Her life is thrown in into confusion when she meets an unknown person within the span of a single day and becomes a wanted person in the whole state.” Kuttram Kadithal is the only Tamil film to be screened at the festival and is expecting a mainstream theatre release in the coming months.
Bramma G
Coffee Bloom
The dream of giving it all up haunts the young 27 or 28-year-old protagonist who sells his coffee plantation as an act of renunciation, says director Manu Warrier.
The film stars Arjun Mathur and Sugandha Ram
Graduating from his role of a scriptwriter, Warrier has brought together a promising cast including Arjun Mathur, Sugandha Ram, Mohan Kapur and Iswari Bose Bhattacharya. The film started in March 2013 and hopes to transport the festival audience “to another world”, in Warrier’s words.
Manu Warrier
Nagrik (Citizen)
Jayprad Desai’s debut film, Nagrik, is a socio-political drama that explores the dilemmas of a fictional journalist called Shyam Jagdale. “We are surrounded by political reality, which brings out our creativity,” he shares. The film started with the known short filmmaker reading Mahesh Keluskar’s short story where a journalist tries to fight the system. “I met the writer after reading the story as I liked it.
Milind Soman has an engaging role in the film
As we started discussing it, the film grew away from the original,” he says. The film’s final draft was completed in 2011 and shows how a nexus of politicians, social workers, and media professionals who are stakeholders who don’t want a certain truth to be exposed.
Jayprad Desai
Noted actors such as Sachin Khedekar, Dr Shriram Lagoo, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Milind Soman and others bring the story to life; off screen the inspiration of the protagonist can be traced to several noted Marathi journalists as well.
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