The beautiful hamlet of Bara Mangwa (also called Mangmaya) near Darjeeling might be several thousand kilometres away from the French Riviera. But that hasn’t deterred its denizen, Saurav Rai, from going on the “majestic mountains to glamorous beaches” journey twice in the last four years.
The 2015 SRFTI (Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute) graduate’s short diploma film, Gudh (Nest), was in the official selection of the Cinefondation section — focussing on student films from the world — at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. This year, the 33-year-old filmmaker’s maiden feature, Nimtoh (Invitation), is one of five projects in the HAF (Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum) Goes to Cannes initiative at the Cannes Film Market.
The showcase, to be held between May 18 and 20, invites international film festivals to programme their work-in-progress projects that are actively seeking sales agents, distributors and festival selection. Apart from HAF, the participants include Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Los Cabos International Film Festival, and more, with each showcasing five to six projects.
Drawn from memory
According to Rai, Nimtoh is a documentation of family life in his village. “Like the river, which might appear silent from above while hiding its internal current, village life too is always brewing with its own internal problems and conflicts. The age-old feudal structure and the rift between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ still runs deep in these villages, at least in India,” he says in his director’s statement.
Despite having a foot in Mumbai now, Rai has consistently drawn from his own experiences in Bara Mangwa. Nimtoh has been shot there entirely. It is set during a wedding in a cardamom orchard whose tenants and caretakers are a little boy, Tashi, and his grandmother. In fact, the wedding harks back to Rai’s own marriage in 2016 when an errand boy got involved in an incident that made Rai’s father and other relatives turn judgmental about the young one. “The incident forms the crux of the film,” he says, the reason he doesn’t want to let us in on more.
He has gone a step ahead with the personal element in Nimtoh, casting his own family members — his father, grandmother — and village people in the various parts. Even his dogs Tinkle and Ginger have starring roles. The crew consists of SRFTI alumni. Like his earlier shorts, it’s in his mother tongue, Nepali.
Rai likes using memories as a narrative tool in his filmmaking. His first short, Monsoon Rains, shot on celluloid, had its world premiere at the Munich International Film Festival (2014). It was inspired by his recollections of the village tailor — his conflicts, insecurities and anxieties. The autobiographical short, Gudh, was rooted in disjointed reminiscences: of his mother, childhood, village, of being brought up by his grandparents. There is the fleeting context of the Gorkhaland movement, “the politics that a whole generation got defined by”, as he puts it. “The disturbances influenced me subconsciously. They made me a sensitive, vulnerable human being,” he says. He thinks the themes in his films — the longing for the mother, village, its people — also have their roots in the movement.
Going beyond numbers
He believes in the essential simplicity of filmmaking, in being organic than constructed, in the fluidity than “plasticness” of images. “I have always considered the power of compassion and empathy to be the greatest virtues of human life,” he states. It is this attitude that drew his co-producer Sanjay Gulati, to him. “He is an honest filmmaker who is not driven by the market. He conveys whatever his heart wants to [say] without letting the mind come in the way,” says Gulati. who joined hands with Rai at the Work In Progress segment of the NFDC Film Bazaar in 2018, where the film also won the Prasad Labs DI Award and Moviebuff Appreciation Award.
Earlier this year, Nimtoh went to the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) that brings filmmakers with upcoming projects to Hong Kong for co-production ventures with financiers, producers and distributors. Past participants in it include auteurs like China’s Jia Zhangke, Japan’s Kawase Naomi and Korea’s Bong Joon-Ho. The first boy from Darjeeling to go to Cannes in 2016, Rai is looking ahead at his second trip with hope as well as nervousness: “Other doors might open now; the journey has just begun.”