A scene from ‘Max, Min and Mawzaki’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“At this point in time, we’re not asking ‘are you okay’?” Enough is enough,” says director Padmakumar Narasimhamurthy, whose films deal with the wounds we live with and find ways to heal. his film Max, Min and MiyozakiParth Saurabh across the puddle, and Siddharth Chauhan Amar Colony Dealing with the issues of gender inequality in love, alienation and prejudices are the highlights of the ongoing Haibat Film Festival. The three young filmmakers have handled the subjects with a light touch to elevate their films above the label of festival films.
Parth, who hails from Darbhanga, returns to his hometown in Bihar to tell the story of gender inequality in small towns. Marked by evocative shots where moonlight blends into street lights to create magic, across the puddle This is the story of a couple who have returned to Darbhanga after fleeing Delhi during the pandemic. A product of IIT Kanpur, Parth says he wanted to find out “how for the same activity, the boy is almost being welcomed while the girl is maligned and ridiculed. Not every couple is killed for love. Some survive and struggle to keep the romance alive, he says. In the film, Priyanka wants to take charge of the financial situation, but Sumit, who has been rendered jobless by the pandemic, tries to nurture a bruised male ego. and is caught between searching for a mother in his wife. The candid conversation between him and his friends over illegally acquired liquor during prohibition in the state is not only a joke but also provides a window into the mindset of boys in small towns. Does
A scene from ‘Amar Colony’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Partha places the girl in a dilapidated building of the Communist Party of India, which he describes as a symbol of liberalism. “My father and uncle have been associated with the party, so it was a part of my growing up years. But the broad sense is that even within the liberal circle they face problems. Priyanka tells her friend who is suffocating in an arranged marriage that her fragmented freedom is better than her friend’s incarceration. Presented by Anurag Kashyap, there are several metaphors that create ripples long after the credits roll.
Like Parth, budding Siddharth finds inspiration in the crumbling and complex structure of Amar Colony in his hometown of Shimla. The confined urban space becomes a symbol of the repressed desires and repressed emotions of the three families living in the space and that which binds them.
“I made a short film Father Around a pigeon and a woman in a wheelchair in 2016. When I looked at the building and explored its interiors, I fell in love with the space and added two more stories to it,” says Siddharth.
A wheelchair-bound Devki stays with her son and finds herself alone and realizes that the pigeon harbors her dead husband’s spirit and calls him Papa. Then there is the pregnant Meera who is waiting for her absent husband. Then there is Durga and her husband who are forced to become guardians of their grandson after the death of their son and daughter-in-law. “The film explores how repressed emotions, imprisonment and loneliness lead to frustration and depression,” he says and wonders.
Siddharth says, ‘Like a pigeon is in a cage, similarly the family members are in a big cage.’
A still from ‘Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
If Siddhartha hires Papa, Padmakumar puts the cat in the middle Max, Min and Miowazaki, To tell us what it means to adjust to society and relationships. Max is allergic to cats but puts up with it because his girlfriend Minara adores him and named him after Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. But his father Mahesh, a lovable fundamentalist played by Adil Hussain, cannot come to terms that his son is living with a Muslim and that his father, a renowned Carnatic musician, sings in mosques and churches. Struggling to come to terms with his wife’s death, he tells the therapist that he wants to ‘own’ her but is afraid of her spirit and self-confidence. “There is a tax on love, but hate is tax-free… there is a lot of hurt and I don’t know where the healing is going to come from,” says Padmakumar, “if art is not out of date in the times we live in, we Really missing the point of being an artist.
HFF 2023 is on till 14 May at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi