Assamese filmmaker Rima Das’ film, Village Rockstars made its World Premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2017
Village Rockstars was the only Indian film to be selected in the competition category, Discovery
Rima Das’ Assamese film, Village Rockstars made its World Premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2017 on September 8.
Village Rockstars is the only Indian film to be screened in the competition section, DISCOVERY, which features directors from across the world to watch out for.
The movie is about a girl, Dhunu, who has grown up in deprivation. She learns to fend for herself in the hostile surroundings while nurturing her dream to own a guitar someday.
The film was selected among the Film Bazaar Recommends at NFDC Film Bazaar 2016.
From Film Bazaar the film got picked up by Matthew Poon and was officially selected for the 2017 Marche du Film (Cannes) Work-In-Progress Lab at the 15th Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum and won the WIP Lab project.
The director-cinematographer-editor-producer Rima Das shares her joy, “I planned Village Rockstars 3 years ago. While making the film I always stayed true to my vision and I am glad that our labor of love is premiering at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival 2017. It’s a great honor that Village Rockstars is competing with the best films from across in the world.”
Rima adds, “I dedicate the film to my non-professional child actors who believed in my vision and gave so much time to the film and gave a remarkable and honest performance.”
Long SYNOPSIS
Dhunu a 10 years old girl lives in a remote village in Assam, India amidst raging deprivation. She is a free spirit and her mother, a widower, who struggles daily to bring food to the table and raise her children. However, that does not prevent her from having unrealistic dreams like owning a guitar for her tiny band of village Rockstars boys. Dhunu is a girl who considers herself as capable as boys her age. She and the gangs of boys want to form a rock band. But later the boys slowly stop perusing their dream, whereas Dhunu continues dreaming to own a guitar. Her faith becomes strong when she reads about the law of attraction in a newspaper article. Her unconventional and nonconformist mother raises her with steadfast determination, giving her full freedom of expression and encouraging her to fulfill her dreams. After her father’s death, her mother taking all the responsibilities realizes that it is important that a girl should be qualified herself.
But beyond the poverty of her living, attacks nature’s fury as her village is flooded and worse than that: the societal restrictions that assail her from the day she reaches puberty. Can Dhunu achieve her simple dream or will she, like hundreds of millions of girls in her situation across the world, have to give up on it!
CREDITS
CAST
Bhanita Das, Basanti Das, Kulada Bhattyacharya, Boloram Das,Rinku Das,Bishnu Kalta,Bhaskar Das, Manabendra Das
CREW
DIRECTOR- Rima Das
DOP- Rima Das
EDITOR-Rima Das
SCREENPLAY-Rima Das
SOUND-Amrit Pritam
PRODUCER-Rima Das
C0-PRODUCER-Jaya Das
PRODUCTION COMPANY-Flying River Films
INTERNATIONAL SALES-Asian Shadows
PUBLICIST-Mauli Singh, Loudspeaker Media
LANGUAGE-Assamese
DURATION- 87 MINS, INDIA, DRAMA, HD, COLOUR
