Saptaparna Biswas (BOMBAY TIMES; February 24, 2019)

With an enviable record of three acclaimed films to her name, National Award winner Rima Das is the toast of the international filmmaking community. Her film Village Rockstars brought the Assam girl critical recognition and fame, but few know that direction was not always on her radar. Rima went from Chhaygaon to Mumbai with dreams of becoming an actress. However, rejection and a chance encounter with works of Satyajit Ray, Majid Majidi and Abbas Kiarostami gave her a new direction in life, quite literally. After making waves with Village Rockstars, which was India’s official entry to the Oscars 2018, and Bulbul Can Sing, which is currently earning praises at multiple film festivals, Rima has overcome gender disparity and language barriers to emerge as an influential name in the field of filmmaking. In a chat with us, she speaks about breaking the glass ceiling, why women should believe in themselves and what can be done to make Indian films Oscar-worthy. Excerpts:

‘MANY PEOPLE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN MY METHOD AND QUESTIONED MY APPROACH’
At the Berlin International Film Festival aka Berlinale, festival director Dieter Kosslick pledged for gender equality in film submissions by 2020, in addition to ensuring better gender representation. Speaking about the same, Rima says, “I can happily state that India was well represented by Zoya Akhtar, Udita Bhargava and my films. These were screened with other big names of international cinema. I think this pledge shows that there is a conscious movement to decrease the gender gap in the field of cinema. It will certainly encourage women to tell the stories they want to.”

For Rima, the journey to her first directorial was not a bed of roses. She hit a low point in her life before taking things in her hands. She shares, “Women must put more faith in themselves than others. In my school and college, I was always the best actress. But in Mumbai, the story was different. I was not accepted because of things like my accent, no film school background etc. I slipped into depression and resorted to watching world movies alone. However, that proved to be a turning point as it opened a whole new world to me. The films mesmerised me and direction took over. I realised that I wanted to create my own world, rather than being restricted to that of others. That is when I decided to tell stories from my native village through my characters.”

With her cousin Mallika Das’ support and a new DSLR camera, Rima ventured into filmmaking. “When I started my first film, Man With The Binoculars, there were many who did not believe in my methods and questioned my approach towards topics. By the second film, I decided to overlook all these hiccups and stuck to my stories that spoke of a dreamy-eyed village girl Dhunu (Village Rockstars) or the free-spirited Bulbul (Bulbul Can Sing), despite the lack of faith from people in my craft.” Agreeing that it takes a lot more for a female filmmaker to prove their worth, especially if the film is speaking about women from their perspective, Rima says, “See, I’m a woman who has grown up observing things around her. So, when I tell stories, the issues that women face in India naturally get highlighted. Having said that, I don’t believe in shoving feminist issues in anyone’s face. I’d rather present them subtly, through organic visuals, for better understanding. Things have to be believable to be taken seriously.”

‘THE WORLD NOTICED THAT A WOMAN CAN SINGLE-HANDEDLY MAKE GOOD FILMS’
Rima doesn’t regret the struggle and, in fact, calls it her ‘film school education’. “Since I do not have any professional training, I have had to pretty much learn everything through the process of filmmaking. I was handling multiple departments at the same time. It was tough yet liberating. With Village Rockstars and Bulbul Can Sing getting international recognition, I finally found my footing, and the world noticed that a woman can also single-handedly make good films. Going ahead, I will collaborate with big production houses, mainstream filmmakers and more. In a way, the real struggle will begin when I do that,” says Rima.

‘VISIBILITY IN THE US IS KEY FOR AN OSCAR NOMINATION’
Though Village Rockstars couldn’t make it to the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars, Rima refuses to get bogged down by the setback. Instead, she focuses on what more could’ve been done. “I think we need more time to market and promote our films. Visibility in the US is necessary. Members of the guild need to watch the movie. There are around 5000 members who vote for the top nominations after that. A total of 87 films from all over the world were in the category, including films like Roma and Shoplifters, which had ample visibility. We got only two months to campaign and promote Village Rockstars and that’s not enough,” says Rima, adding that support from the government and private firms is essential for any Indian film to make it to the Oscar nomination list.

‘SATYAJIT RAY SHOWED ME THE WAY’
When people drew parallels between Village Rockstars and Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali at a film festival, Rima was overwhelmed. “They said that I have a realistic and organic approach, just like Ray. I would say that Ray is the master who showed me the way. And there’s still a long way for me to go,” she concludes, hoping for better collaborations and stories to come forth in the near future, and this time, not just from Assam.

A woman walks by a day care centre in the neighbourhood where the Netflix film ‘Roma’, with 10 Oscar nominations, was filmed in Mexico City

THE TIMES OF INDIA (January 28, 2019)

The success of ‘Roma’, which garnered 10 Oscar nominations this week, has made a star out of one of the movie’s key protagonists: the Mexico City neighbourhood that gave it its name.

Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, who sumptuously shot it in black and white, the movie is set in the 1970s in the Mexico City neighbourhood where he grew up, La Roma — today a magnet for filmbuff tourists seeking the modern-day, full-colour version.

The neighbourhood Cuaron depicts as an upper-middle-class bastion of spacious art-deco houses and fancy chrome-clad cars fell on hard times when it was devastated by a 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people in Mexico City. But its central location and leafy streets helped bring it back, and today it is a hipster paradise of trendy bars, cafes, restaurants and shops.

One of those streets in particular has drawn an unprecedented flow of tourists since ‘Roma’ came out, according to residents: Tepeji street, where Cuaron grew up and meticulously recreated his boyhood home for the film. Outside number 22 Tepeji, a newly installed metal plaque informs visitors: “This is where ‘Roma’ was filmed, 2016-2017.”

“We loved the movie. It captivated us from the first moment. We decided to come see the house in person,” said Esteban Alvarez, 27, a musician from Costa Rica who was making the pilgrimage with his girlfriend. They have joined a stream of tourists hunting for locations where the highly autobiographical film was shot.

There is even a guidebook for people trying to retrace the film’s steps, while Conde Nast published an article this week to help tourists find “Mexico City Airbnbs that Could Have Been in ‘Roma.’” ‘Roma’ is an intimate portrait of the two women who raised Cuaron: his nanny, played by breakout star Yalitza Aparicio, and his mother, played by Marina de Tavira — both up for Oscars.

Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; December 19, 2018)

Director Rima Das’ Village Rockstars, which was chosen as India’s official entry to the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category, is out of the race. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced that nine films have advanced to the next round of voting for the 91st Academy Awards. Colombia’s Birds Of Passage, Denmark’s The Guilty, Germany’s Never Look Away, Japan’s Shoplifters, Kazakhstan’s Ayka, Lebanon’s Capernaum, Mexico’s Roma, Poland’s Cold War and South Korea’s Burning have moved to the next round of voting.

Village Rockstars, which was shot in Assam, revolves around children who lead a fun-filled life despite their adversities and had won the National Award for the Best Film, too. Filmmaker Ananth Mahadevan, who was among the jurors who selected the film as India’s entry to the Oscar, told BT, “I still stand by the selection we made. Rima’s film offered an improvised look at relationships and it belonged to a part of India that has seldom been explored before. I have always maintained that with respect to filmmaking, the world is miles ahead of us. Their concepts and execution is far superior. Village Rockstars was competing with Roma, which according to reports, is the Oscar favourite this year. Shoplifters was a favourite at Cannes. Village Rockstars came very close to being selected in the top nine and it lost out to some of the best works in the world.”

He adds, “We have to improve our standards in filmmaking. Unless we have the fire to stand at par with world cinema and until producers don’t step in to help, we will languish with mediocre stuff. It’s like, why aren’t we at par with the best teams in football? I am not too taken aback by the Academy’s decision, but I still believe that no other film from India could have represented us this year. Our best effort fell short and there is a bitter lesson to be learnt here. Rima has nothing to be disheartened about because her work was knocked off the list while competing with the best the world had to offer.” 

Rima Das, whose film Village Rockstars is India’s nominee for the 2019 Academy Awards, on why she doesn’t mind being an independent filmmaker
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 4, 2018)

“There were no natural disasters, we had fun,” says Rima Das, about the floods she experienced as a child in Kalardiya, 50 km southwest of Guwahati. “As a child, you looked forward to heavy rain and water all around. We would make rafts out of banana leaves to go to school, go fishing and sometimes, school would be shut too.”

It’s this childlike perspective that Das, 36, has tried to capture in her multiple National Award-winning Village Rockstars, which is India’s entry for the 2019 Academy Awards. Set in rural Assam, the film follows the story of a young girl who dreams of owning a guitar and forming her own band. Das says it’s a story that reflects her own dreams and aspirations. “Miracles happen. If you dream, they can be achieved,” says the one-woman-crew who wore multiple hats during the production — that of a director, producer, editor and cinematographer.

Das, who aspired to be an actress, considers herself to be an accidental filmmaker. When she arrived in Mumbai in 2003, after completing her masters in Sociology from Pune University and after clearing the National Eligibility Test (to pursue teaching like her father), it seemed her tinsel town ambitions would never take off. “I did a few plays at Prithvi, but I wasn’t getting the roles I wanted,” she says. “So I thought I would make a film and create a role for myself.” This is when Das came across the Canon 5D, “a small camera which offered cinematic results”. Her first “experiment” resulted in the short film Pratha (2009), which was well received on the festival circuit and gave her the “confidence to go ahead”.

A few years later, Das released her first feature Antardrishti (Man With The Binoculars), inspired by a friend who had purchased a pair of binoculars for his father in Kalardiya. The film, which was shot in Kalardiya, was completed in 2016. While Das was determined to make it to the front of the camera, she found being both an actor and director too much to handle. “I couldn’t focus on either and eventually direction took over.” Antardrishti was screened at Cannes in 2016, the Mumbai Film Festival and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia the same year. “When I started out, people told me there are 10,000 films submitted for Toronto Film Festival and 12,000 films submitted for Cannes, who is going to watch your film? But we are here, right? People told me a women empowerment film won’t win a National Award. But here we are.”

The idea for Village Rockstars struck Das when she was filming Antardrishti and came across a group of children dancing with make-believe musical instruments to a tune playing from a loudspeaker. As the movie enters its fifth week in theatres, Das feels “it’s truly a regional film that has gone mainstream.”

But this isn’t the response she expected. “When I made Village Rockstars, it was, for me, a festival film. There is no background score, there are many layers and it is not a structured film. But the response was heartening.”

Das credits the festival circuit as an enabler, as it “helps [the film] reach out to a wider audience”. “I didn’t even think of various interpretations [of the film] that others pointed out during the one-on-one audience interactions.” To create a buzz around her Oscar contender, Das has acquired an agent in LA and plans to host screenings to build awareness and generate interest.

While Das has received Rs 1 crore from the Assam government towards her Oscar campaign, she agrees that being backed by a studio would’ve made things smoother. On the other hand, she isn’t entirely sure if it would allow her complete autonomy over her project. “A few [studios] who have approached me lately, say they will give me the freedom to do whatever I want… but I can’t say how it would be because I haven’t experienced it yet. Mine has been a different journey,” she says. “When I take money from other producers, I would have to be more careful and listen to them too.” But she also admits that lack of funds can be detrimental when lobbying for a film that hasn’t had an international release. “There are 87 films being entered in the Best Foreign Language Film category so people should know about our film too. Films like Roma (Spanish) and Shoplifters (a Japanese film which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year) are backed by big studios and can afford to spend over 10 crore to create visibility, we can probably spend one, but it’s OK. Why should films backed by big studios be the only ones to go for Oscars?”

Roma is an unbelievable piece of cinema by Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón. Set in Mexico City in the 70s, it primarily talks about a maid working in a middle class family. This 135 minute long film is slow and doesn't really engage well initially, although the opening credits are spectacular. But once viewers get familiarised with the characters and setting, it goes on a high. Many sequences are exceptionally treated, and watch out for the ones that are captured flawlessly in one take. Few scenes have a heart in the mouth feel and hats off to the entire team for pulling it off! Yalitza Aparicio delivers an outstanding performance. Her deadpan expressions and feeble smile is going to linger in my mind for days. Marina de Tavira is the next best. The kids are very good as well and adorable. Don't miss this flick at any cost if it releases in cinemas near you before it's Netflix premiere on December 14!

My rating - **** ½ out of 5!

Chaitanya Tamhane has been watching Alfonso Cuaron at work on Roma while also wrapping up a Marathi script that rolls this year
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 8, 2018)

After his 2014 legal drama Court won the Best Feature National Award, Chaitanya Tamhane was picked by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón under the Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative. The 30-year-old director joined Cuarón on the sets of his new film, Roma, in Mexico in late 2016 where he spent a month observing the filmmaker at work. He has now flown to Los Angeles to work with the 56-year-old Mexican on post-production.

Speaking to Mirror from LA, Chaitanya admitted that he was delighted when, after a five-month process and a personal interview with Cuarón in London, he was selected as his protégé for the initiative that has featured Martin Scorsese and Mira Nair as mentors in the past. “Cuaron had seen Court and had really liked it,” exults Chaitanya, informing that one of the first foreign films he had seen was Cuarón’s 2001 Mexican drama Y Tu Mamá También, and was blown away by his 2006 British-American dystopian thriller, Children of Men, as also the Sandra Bullock-George Clooney starrer Gravity. “I’m not really assisting Alfonso, it’s more of a creative dialogue between two artistes and since he’s so accessible and caring, I can ask him whatever I want. It feels surreal to spend time with him and get to see him at work,” Chaitanya says.

The young director also admits that having debuted with a low-budget indie, watching Cuarón who’s not just directing and producing Roma but has also scripted it and is the cinematographer, is an eye-opener. “His expertise in executing his vision is staggering and I feel privileged to be privy to this process,” says Chaitanya, who will be joining Cuaron early next month in Berlin for the closing ceremony of the initiative.

The gala will have mentors and protégés from across disciplines, including dance, theatre, visual arts, music, literature and film. Cuarón and he will do a small talk after which, towards February-end, he joins his mentor in London to observe sound mixing. “I asked him how he dealt with big studios and Alfonso told me that he had five magic words which was his response to any feedback, ‘I will think about it,’” Chaitanya narrates with a laugh.

He was in touch with Cuarón all through 2017 over emails and has even shared his new script with him, hoping to get some feedback on his current trip. Siddharth Roy Kapur will produce the film. “It’s a coming-of-age Marathi film set in Mumbai and very different from Court. I will be working with non-professional actors mostly and plan to shoot this year,” says Chaitanya who is open to a Hindi film if he finds the right subject.

Adding to his joy, the DVD and the Blue Ray of Court will now be released in the US by Kino Lorber. “The cover has two-time Oscar-nominee Joshua Oppenheimer describing it as a ‘masterpiece’ and Sean Baker asserting it as one of the strongest debuts ever,” says the excited maker acknowledging that after Court it’s been easier to find support for his next film.