MEET THE DIRECTORS AT IFFB 2024
Karthik Subbaraj is an Indian film director, writer and producer working mainly in Tamil cinema.
Dr. Bobby Sarma Baruah is a national and international award-winning Indian filmmaker, producer and screenwriter whose narrative content on socio-cultural issues in Assam and the Northeast India has been highly appreciated.
A recipient of the prestigious President’s National Film Award, Aman has directed over two hundred commercials with the most reputed agencies and clients from around the world.
Seldom foraying into long format for meaningful work, OPIUM is his passion project. An anthology feature that promises powerful, moving performances with a diverse cast and crew.
Haobam is a prominent voice, emitting out of the restive north eastern state of Manipur, India dabbling in both non-fiction and fiction storytelling. His film AFSPA 1958 was awarded the Golden Lotus for the Best Documentary at the 56th National Film Awards 2008. "A CRY IN THE DARK" is another film screened at the 31st Toronto Film Festival 2006 and MOMA New York 2007. After nearly a decade of documentary filmmaking, he made his critically acclaimed feature film Loktak Lairembee (Lady of the Lake) which featured at 67th Berlin Film Festival 2017 and 21st Busan International Film Festival 2016.
Born in 1962 in Orissa, Subas Das came to filmmaking by accident. A student of Geology, his interest in still photography led to the discovery of his lifelong vocation. After making a few dozens of documentary, short and animation films, in 2003 he directed and produced his first feature film “Aw Aakare Aa” (A, B, She). The film got the National Award for best feature film in Odia language and Seven State Awards. The film has been screened widely in India. "Ekaa Ekaa" (Meandering Reflections) is his second feature film.
Don Palathara (born 1986, India) is from Kerala, and later relocated to Sydney, Australia. He earned a diploma from the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television and, after directing numerous short films, made his feature film debut with Shavam in 2015, subsequently acquired by Netflix. His film Joyful Mystery received a nomination for a Golden St. George at the 2021 Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF). Many of his works have been included in major international film festivals, including IFFR Rotterdam, Moscow IFF, and IFF Kerala. Family marks his sixth feature fiction film.
Rajni is a script writer, director, actor and producer. She hails from Assam, India and strongly believes that culture and creativity can engender social change in communities. She wrote and produced her film "Anuraag" in 2004 which went on to receive several Assam State Film Awards. She debuted as a director in 2014 with "Raag, the Rhythm of Love".
A filmmaker from Belgaum, Harshad Nalawade’s debut feature film, Follower, is set in the same town. Based on his own experiences of growing up in a linguistically marginalized community of the border city, the film was dreamed up in 2018 after he had directed and written various short films. For Follower, Harshad raised funds through crowdfunding and eventually got selected in the NFDC Film Bazaar Work-in-Progress Lab, 2021
FILM LINE UP AT IFFB 2024
FOLLOWER
by Harshad Nalawade
In a small town riddled with territorial dispute, a radicalized journalist, believes in exposing the atrocities committed against his community. But his beliefs are based on half-truths propagated by an extremist leader.
DHUIN
by Achal Mishra
Pankaj is a small-town theatre actor with dreams of making it big in Mumbai. But faced with obligations to his family, which is under a deep financial strain post the lockdown, he is forced to weigh his dreams and make a choice.
MITHYA
by Sumanth Bhat
Mithya is a journey along-side Mithun, a 11 year old, who is coming to terms with the loss of his parents. We walk in step with his tottering feet, as they search for solid ground. Can a new house be home, can friendships be forged again or is it all just a search for something long gone!
WATER STATION
by Abhishek Majumdar
How do we preserve dignity amid adversity? The Water Station, a film adaptation by Abhishek Majumdar of Ōta Shōgo’s 1981 play, explores migration driven by desperation. Through movement, sound, and silence, it reflects on what we leave behind, who we journey with, and the encounters along the way. Inspired by Shōgo’s childhood as a refugee, this wordless piece emphasizes slowness and quietude to convey the profound human experience of displacement.
KAATHAL
by Jeo Baby
The film is set in a village Teekoy in the hilly parts of Kottayam. Matthew, a retired worker of a Cooperative Bank lives with his wife Omana and father Devassy. The film explores their conjugal life after Omana files for a separation from Matthew.
GORAI PHAKHRI
by Rajni Basumatary
Set in the foothills of Bodoland in Northeast India, the story explores the lives of women in a patriarchal society recovering from decades of armed conflict. Their experiences of repression and fighting back are interwoven.
JIGARTHANDA DOUBLE X
by Karthik Subbaraj
A notorious gangster is incited to transform into a film hero and opts for a filmmaker. Before long, their project descends into an emotionally tumultuous adventure, a scenario they had never anticipated.
FAMILY
by Don Palathara
Sony, a catholic man from rural central Kerala, India, comes across as a good-hearted leader. However, lurking behind his public persona is an entirely different character. Even as his family members become aware of his deeds, they are silenced by the system, which mindfully and actively protects men, their delinquencies, and secrets. The family thus becomes a sturdy closet, where skeletons of the past are kept unseen by the outside world. The film tries to understand how the family system operates like mafia when it comes to the crimes from within.
IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
by Dhruv Solanki
It's all in your head focuses on one day in the life of six siblings, rural but americanised, living in Vadodara. It is an attempt to take an honest look at the inner working of the mind and lives of the Indian middle - class youth in the internet age.
NIMTOH
by Saurav Rai
Ten years old Tashi and his old grandma are the caretakers of a cardamom orchard belonging to a landlord. The little boy shares a close relationship with the landlady. However, he is scared of her husband because of his coldness towards him. The news of the landlord’s son’s marriage makes Tashi excited. He is entrusted with the task of distributing the wedding invitations around the village. The landlord is at loggerheads with his son over his sudden decision to get married. On the wedding day Tashi gets entangled in an incident to which he may or he may not be involved.
OPIUM
by Aman Sachdeva
An anthology feature of five stories stringed together with the theme of religion.
SIKAISAL
by Dr. Bobby Sarma Baruah
The path to knowledge shown by Maheshwar Patar, becomes a beacon in Ulukunchi, his determination to educate his people makes way to his dream and purpose in life.
THURAMUKHAM
by Rajeev Rav
Two brothers are on opposing sides in the epic struggle of day labourers against dock bosses in 1940s Southern India
KAYO KAYO COLOUR?
by Shahrukhkhan Chavada
Set in Kalupur, a neighbourhood in the old city of Ahmedabad, India, this slice-of-life film follows the daily life of Razzak and his family through an observational lens. Razzak, an unemployed father of two, endeavours to own an auto-rickshaw for business while his daughter, Ruba, is introduced to an interesting drink worth 100 rupees that she can't afford. Through a series of everyday events, the film uncovers the family’s struggles, interpersonal conflicts, joys, and ways of life as they navigate through the intertwined yet unassuming layers of social and political influence.
JOSEPH'S SON
by Haobam Paban Kumar
Joseph, a musician reluctantly sets out on the long journey to look for his missing son. As he travels, his fear grows deeper : a fear born of constant conflict - past and present - to which a personal fear is added.
BAHADUR
by Diwa Shah
Having a singular and opportune sociopolitical vision, 'Bahadur- The Brave' dwells into an exciting local story about the Nepalese migrant porters with universal scope, centred around an honest and touching friendship.
EKA EKA
by Subas Das
A film about being alone in the world and a search for what it means to be a good human being, in the meandering flow of life in its ordinary everydayness. This is the story of Om, a filmmaker who strives to bridge the gulf between his art and life by finding a common basis for both in responsibility and concern for the other. In the process he must confront his own inner exile and contradictions, memory and longing, and the nature of human relationships. Like the waves of the sea, the ebb and flow of life continues and through it the film essays a journey and a quest.
JORAM
by Devashish Makhija
A desperate man and his infant daughter fleeing a system that want them crushed at any cost, a cop giving unwilling chase, and a bereaved mother seeking ruthless vengeance, collide in a tense, breathless survival thriller across a brutal landscape of devastated forests, blind greed, rebellion, and the bloody aftershocks of ‘development’.
USKI ROTI
by Mani Kaul
A desolate bus-stop on a highway… figure of a village woman - Balo, waiting to deliver a meal to Sucha Singh, the husband, a bus driver. He expects the traditional duties of an average Indian rural wife. Balo in turn accepts her husband's independent lifestyle. Balo hurries to the bus-stop. She is late delivering the meal, trying to save her younger sister, Jinda, from being seduced by the village rake
ASHAD KA EK DIN
by Mani Kaul
A literary film based on a play with in three acts, Ashad Ka Ek Din portrays the love of Mallika and Kalidasa, the renowned Sanskrit poet and dramatist. Vilom, a friend to both and interested in Mallika, is a passive onlooker for the first two acts. Kalidasa leaves his verdant mountain valley home for the splendour of far-off Ujjain where he wins fame. The action of the film/play is rooted in the village to which Kalidasa returns years later and finds Mallika married to Vilom and the mother of his child. Mallika sacrificed her love so that the poet could pursue his muse.
DUVIDHA at IFFB 2024
by Mani Kaul
A girl Lachhi, is married to a merchant's son, Kishanlal. He brings her to his village but leaves her immediately to go
away on business. Lachhi is left to her own devices. Meanwhile, a ghost falls in love with her and assumes the form of her husband and begins to live with her. Soon she finds herself pregnant with a child. The husband returns... a dilemma arises… The film moves on two planes -inside-outside, dark-light, a structure that exists in the folk tales and myths the world ove
THE CLOUD DOOR
by Mani Kaul
Cloud Door has been adapted from three sources:
From Bhasa's Sanskrit play "Aimaraka" (5th-7th centuries) Malik Mohammed Jayasi's Sufi epic love poem "Padmavat" (13th century) and from an erotic Indian tale called "Suksaptiti" (writer unknown).
NAZAR
by Mani Kaul
After his wife's death, the husband recalls their first meeting and marriage. She was much younger than him. She used to pawn some things to an antique shop to make a little money. The husband is increasingly intrigued by her mind-set. As things develop, he finds out that she was an orphan living with two aunts. The film explores their complex life in a manner unusual for Indian cinema.
DHRUPAD
by Mani Kaul
The film explores Dhrupad music through the practice of Dagar Family - Fariduddin & Zia Mohiuddin Dagar.
SIDDHESHWARI
by Mani Kau
The film explores the life of Siddheshwari Devi, a classical singer from Varanasi.
MATI MANAS
by Mani Kaul
The film examines the art of Pottery in India.it documents the craft tradition of rural Indian Potters.
JHILLI
by Ishaan Ghose
When Bokul realizes that most of his friends are leaving him behind in the rubble of discards, he decides to change his life.
