National Award-winning filmmaker Rima Das is preparing for her Oscar debut

I  am exhausted,” sighs Rima Das, when I finally manage to speak to the National Award-winning director, whose film Village Rockstars has been chosen as India’s official entry for the 2019 Oscars.

A constant busy signal on her phone suggests it hasn’t stopped ringing since the announcement came a week ago, with numerous strangers even offering to donate money as she prepares to promote her movie in its race for the Academy Award for best foreign language film — a coveted prize that has forever eluded Indian cinema.

In April, the Assamese feature that had already earned plaudits at various festivals, won in the best feature film and three other categories at the 65th National Awards. In a weary voice, Das, who is not 40 yet, admits that this honour, along with news of Village Rockstars’ selection for a shot at the film world’s most famous golden statuette, has left her with hardly any time to catch her breath.

“After the National Awards, the international market is noticing me,” says the indie filmmaker, adding that producers in Mumbai, where she is based, as well as those from places like Los Angeles, France and Germany have shown interest in working with her. “These include one big studio. They just want me to write, and are open about who I cast,” she says, not willing to reveal names.

Das has made three feature films, starting with Antardrishti (Man with the Binoculars) in 2016. That she turned into a one-woman army — taking charge of directing, producing, writing, cinematography and editing — and relied on amateurs, except for one veteran actor, for her breakthrough second feature, Village Rockstars (2017), is no less fascinating than the visually stunning yet simple tale of a 10-year-old girl who aspires to be a guitarist. This year she has come up with Bulbul Can Sing (2018), a coming-of-age story of three teens discovering their sexual identities, which has been screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. She also plans a third venture to complete a trilogy that began with Village Rockstars.

Film critic Anupama Chopra gives a thumbs-up to the Film Federation of India’s selection committee for choosing Village Rockstars ahead of star-studded films. “Rima’s own journey is remarkable and an inspiring narrative for people who want to make films. She’s somebody who came to Mumbai to be an actor, didn’t make it, and then basically taught herself and made a movie about a world we hadn’t seen,” she adds.

Filmmaker Rima Das while shooting for Village Rockstar in Assam

Village Rockstars doesn’t play by the rulebook or fit into a formulaic style, making it original and charming, which is the result of enormous hard work. “Simplicity doesn’t come easily. Village Rockstars is a filmmaker telling a story that’s close to her heart. No Mumbai filmmaker could have made it. So I think it’s a story that rings as more authentic than exotic, which is why the response has been so positive,” gushes Chopra.

Filmmaker and actor Ananth Mahadevan, who was part of the selection committee, observes that it is rare to find an Indian film as rooted to the soil as Village Rockstars, which is set in Das’s ancestral village of Kaladia in Chaygaon, Assam.

It is a simple movie, with its slice-of-life glimpse into a rural place that is ravaged annually by floods, but its amateur crew left the committee impressed in terms of story, performances and technical aspects. (One of the National Awards fetched by the movie was best location sound recordist.)
 

“It takes guts to make a movie without a background score,” says Mahadevan, who compares the film to acclaimed Iranian director Majid Majidi’s classic works with children in central roles.

Das has also established herself as a force to reckon with internationally, having taken her movies to festivals worldwide. So Mahadevan is confident of a strong showing by Village Rockstars at the Oscars.

A film’s selection for the Oscars’ race is just the start of a big battle, which calls for adroit publicity and salesmanship to ensure the screenings are attended by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “To go to LA, lobby there and get publicity where you are up against the best films, those are big odds,” says Chopra.

For her, the Oscar results are akin to electoral contests where parties with requisite funds for campaigning stand a better chance of triumphing.

Interestingly, the best foreign language film award at the Oscars is not given to an individual but accorded to the country the winning film represents. Only three Indian movies — Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay (1988) and Lagaan (2001) — have so far been nominated to the final round at the Oscars.

Actor Adil Hussain recently tweeted urging the government to provide funds worth Rs 50 million for the promotion of Village Rockstars. The Assam government this week declared that it would offer Rs 5 million for the purpose. Das’s film is the first from the northeastern state to be in the fray at the Oscars. From the Indian film industry, Manish Mundra, the founder of production house Drishyam Films that has backed a handful of low-budget movies, has pledged to contribute Rs 1 million to Das.

The petite filmmaker is overwhelmed by the public support and eagerness of individuals to chip in, suggesting they have embraced Village Rockstars as their movie. She is hopeful of receiving more money from the state and concedes a discomfort in accepting money from the public.
 

It does boil down to money and is a question of attracting eyeballs, agrees Chopra, although she expresses doubts over the question of government involvement in funding promotional lobbying.

The past three years of making a visible presence in the festival circuit gives Das the confidence of gaining a favourable response from publicists she has written to. She acknowledges the pressing need to start promoting the film in the US. Before that, she also has to take part in a couple of film festivals — in Mumbai and Busan, South Korea.

Mayank Tewari, who wrote the screenplay for Newton, India’s official entry for the Oscars last year, says, “Movies backed by big studios will organise screenings and show them to the academy members. With Newton we didn’t have that luxury and we didn’t get shortlisted. I am not saying it’s because of lack of money. Maybe we were also short on merit.” So, there is a game of funding, he adds. “It’s just the way the American business (Oscars) is. It is not corrupt.”

Typically, aside from the Filmfare and National awards, he says, these functions in India are only attended by those who win, unlike at the Oscars where many popular films do not even get nominated.

“Our institutions should be strong within the film fraternity. We should be able to repose confidence in our awards,” he says, adding that regional cinema is miles ahead of Bollywood as it is more rooted and targeted at smaller audiences where the commercial stakes aren’t high enough to deter bold experimentation.
 

Village Rockstars released in India this Friday. Das hasn’t had the time to look into how the film is getting distributed in her native Assam.

Utpal Borpujari, whose debut feature Ishu won the best Assamese film recognition at the National Awards in April, says there is a lack of space for Assamese cinema whose commercial viability is limited. In the last couple of years, a new breed of Assamese filmmakers is breaking out of the usual family or social drama and handling interesting subjects, he adds. “There are no cinema halls in places where we have Assamese audiences. We need at least 200 screens for local cinema, whereas we hardly have 50.”

The success of Village Rockstars, he believes, is an indication of better times to come for both artistes and audiences.