Village Rockstars

Bollywood’s loss is our considerable gain when Rima Das who left her remote Indian village to find work as an aspiring actor in the Hindi film capital of Mumbai, finally came to the realization that if she were to make it in the movie industry, it would not be in front of the camera but rather behind it bringing her own visions to the screen. 

Village Rockstars is self-taught filmmaker Rima Das’ beautiful charming coming-of-age story and stunning visual homage to her hometown of Chahaygaon in rural northeast India, and a love poem to remote village life and its people struggling to survive the yearly floods. 

Opting for a more realist experience very much in the spirit of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955), we follow a playful ten year old girl Dhunu (Bhanita Das), living an idealic childhood as a tomboy who loves to run and roughhouse with the village boys climbing trees, walking to school and pretending to be in a rock band with her friends using Styrofoam cut-out guitars.

Dhunu and her widowed mother are managing without her father who died in an accident during one of the previous floods and her mother gently teaches her daughter to be independent, allowing her the freedom to enjoy her childhood. But once puberty strikes there is pressure from the villagers to keep this free-spirited girl out of the trees and indoors.

When Dhunu finds a real guitar for sale at the local market, she dreams of the fame and fun she and her friends will enjoy as a village rock band and tries to find a way to make enough money to buy the guitar. First she consults the wise village elder who gives her the idea of helping the neighboring villagers with little favors and tasks that they cannot do themselves; like collecting fruit too high to reach by climbing tall trees and shaking the branches. This way she’s able to eventually save enough money and also make valuable friendships in the process.

There are some striking similarities with another touching coming-of-age film, Wadjda (2012), also about a savvy ten year old girl living with her mother in suburban Riyad, Saudi Arabia who also finds some crafty ways to make money to buy a bicycle she wants so she can ride to school with the boys. In much the same way that Wadjda learns to use her natural skills as a young entrepreneur, Dhunu also learns that with determination, she can achieve her dreams.

This is the kind of life that director Rima Das had grown up in and lovingly rediscovered again in her adulthood after returning from Mumbai as a failed actor. While following and getting to know this group of rambunctious children as they go about their daily lives spontaneously enjoying playful activities in their natural environment, even allowing them to participate in the actual making of the film, Rima gives us a real sense of what life is like for these people as we witness them struggling with nature, animals and weather. 

It’s a remarkable achievement as the film is totally self-financed using a non-professional cast of characters from her own village, and a documentary style of filming. With very little dialogue or story, Rima Das is able to create the kind of experimental minimalist neorealism pioneered and championed by legendary filmmakers Satyajit Ray and Abbas Kiarostami.  

Village Rockstars’ heartfelt story and authentic organic locations are so fondly visualized in such intimate detail and evocative vignettes; we can feel the mud huts baking in the sweltering heat, and the coolness of soaking in water pools among the grass fields. It’s an absolute gem, the kind of crowd-pleaser that will most certainly enjoy universal appeal.

JP

Alanis

Alanis is a powerful character study from the acclaimed award winning Argentine filmmaker Anahí Berneri who is known for her extremely intimate and raw authentic depictions of women struggling with motherhood and societal expectations ; Aire Libre (2014), It’s Your Fault (2010). 

She has chosen for her latest film an even more provocative perspective on life from the dark underworld of prostitutes struggling to survive while working on the urban streets of Buenos Aires. 

With Alanis, Berneri focuses on the remarkable and gripping story of a young resilient sex worker and new mother struggling to stabilize her life and that of her new toddler when she is locked out of her downtown apartment that she rents and works out of with an older colleague she shares the space with.

After her friend Gisela is arrested in a raid of their flat by undercover inspectors, Alanis takes her baby, Dante, played by her actual son, to a nearby relative who owns a women’s clothing shop to crash for the night until she can get her belongings back which are locked in the apartment.

Alanis played by Sofia Gala Castiglione is absolutely riveting to watch and carries the film as we follow her through a range of daily activities from mundane dressing and breast feeding her child, to the matter-of-factness of her job performing sex acts with some of her clients, and the more disturbing suspenseful scenes of surviving on the seedy streets of a busy multi-cultural metropolis. She makes it seem completely natural and honest as if it’s all part of life.

Alanis feels like and harkens back to the best of Italian neo-realist cinema of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948), but without any sentimentality or moralizing and without any judgement. We are simply present to what seems like actual documentary style footage from what could be her cell phone camera. We also get moments of visual beauty that transcend her predicament and elevate the film and our hopes.

There’s a peripheral social comment in the film that exposes the way sex workers are treated by the state, law enforcement and the attitudes and perceptions of society. But mostly we focus on Alanis’ immediate needs to provide for the survival of her child and herself, at once tender and reflective, then suddenly violent and desperate.

Alanis never displays any signs of shame or apology for what she does. As dire as Alanis’ circumstance are, she seems to take it all in stride, determined to show her pride and dignity in the face of adversity and judgement. It’s as if this has always been her reality and indeed she is so accustomed to her bohemian lifestyle that it seems unnatural for her to imagine any other life. When she does get an opportunity to make a living as a cleaner, she quickly grows tired and depressed finding it more degrading than what she was doing and returns to the more familiar nocturnal territory of the streets.

The hard rock soundtrack appropriately gives Alanis the sense of living a life on the edge of society where there are few people and resources she can turn to for help, while also reflecting the hardened persona she has had to develop in order to survive her harsh environment.

But Alanis is not the kind of film that gives us hope or answers. It’s more honest than that, and by the end of the film she has had to endure many dangers and people who want to take advantage or punish her. But she refuses to be a victim and continues to live the only life she knows while finding happiness nurturing and loving her child.

Alanis had its premiere at the TIFF 2017 Toronto International Film Festival this past month and has since won the Best Actress award for Sofia Gala Castiglione, and the Best Director Award for Anahí Berneri at the 65^th San Sebastián Film Festival. Berneri became the first female director to win the award in the 65 year history of the Festival.

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What Will People Say

What Will People Say is a gripping autobiographical film from Norwegian filmmaker Iram Haq that deals with the cultural conflict of first generation Muslim immigrants who must find a way to fit into the lifestyle of their newly adopted country while also adhering to the traditions and culture of their parents. 

Born in Norway to Pakistani parents, Actress, Writer, Director Iram Haq tells a disturbing personal story about the harrowing experiences she was subjected to by her own family when she was only 14 years old. She waited a long time to tell this story in order to give it the balanced treatment she felt it needed to understand her father’s behavior and also be true to her own feelings.

Part of the Platform program at the 2017 Tiff Toronto International Film Festival, where What Will People Say had its world premiere, the film is a searing indictment of the brutal subjugation inflicted on Muslim girls that continues to exist today in many European and North American countries where the practice of forced child marriage and so called ‘honor killings’ has been imported with immigrant families from India and Pakistan.

Nisha (Maria Mozhdah), born and living in Norway with her Pakistani parents leads a typical life of a European teenager when she is caught with her Norwegian boyfriend in her bedroom by her father Mirza (Adil Hussain) who is so outraged that he physically assaults the boy and tries to marry her off believing that they must have had sex.

When the misguided father disowns his daughter and Child Services gets involved, the family is so concerned about their reputation in the Pakistani community that the mother deceives Nisha into believing that all is now fine and she can return home only to be kidnapped by her father and brother who secretly take her by force to Pakistan to live in isolation with an Aunt she doesn’t know.

Horrified at being abandoned by her family in a country she has never been to, she makes several attempts to escape and communicate with her friends in Norway. Unable to leave, she is threatened with being married off to a poor family where she will spend the rest of her life as a child slave if she tries to escape again. 

Incredibly, Nisha’s ordeal only gets worse from there and she’s eventually forced to flee her family who subject her to ever increasing humiliations in the name of restoring their status in the community. 

Maria Mozhadah and Adil Hussain’s performances as the suffering father and daughter are powerfully convincing with real conviction and passion. A strong feeling of anger and outrage may accompany the viewing of this film and others like it that deal with this controversial topic. Forced child marriage is still widely practiced in all parts of Pakistan.

What Will People Say is part of an increasingly vocal and ever growing movement by female and male filmmakers to expose the shocking truth about the treatment of women by oppressive patriarchal and religious societies, but as the film points out, even as we become aware of these issues that exist in our own neighborhoods and cities, there is little that can be done to protect children from such abuses in the highly insular and socially controlled Muslim communities. 

Giving voice to issues of gender inequality has become vital in recent years as more female filmmakers are working now than ever before opening our eyes to disturbing practices in an ever increasing diverse world where it’s becoming imperative that we learn to live together in harmony.  

Here are some other excellent films that also tell similar stories: A Wedding - Noces (2016), As I Open My Eyes (2016), Sand Storm (2016), Layla M. (2016), Mustang (2015), Dukhtar (2014), and Circumstance (2011).

JP