‘Rabt’ is a beautiful story about an unexpected connection, an unlikely link between two very disparate characters, Manav, a worker for a company that sells caller tunes, and Dhananjay, an old man who lives in the hills with his disgruntled domestic worker. 

If the former is stuck in a dead-end job which leaves him little room to expand his true passion of music and singing, the latter deals with dementia. However, the similarity between the two characters remains their own respective emotional burdens that they quietly carry. From guilt and regret to hurt and disappointment, all of these emotions are painted on the canvas of the narrative without making it mawkish or maudlin. 

The writing of the film does a commendable job of discussing ideas of marriage, family, fidelity and relationships, and the many variables that continue to mold them indefinitely. The background score is especially complementary in supporting this conversation. All of it is handled with sincerity, ensuring that the end result of the film is a lovely, heartfelt story.

Rabt | Short Film Nominee

The film is marked by its silences more than dialogues, and in the process, offers a calm narrative - poignant, beautiful and engaging in equal measure. It is the story of a young writer who takes on petty jobs to help himself survive in the city, while continuing to scribble on his little notepad in between the dozens of chores he has to accomplish on a daily basis. One morning, stumbling across a pretty stranger, who seems to be reading the same poetry early in the morning he had fallen asleep to the previous night, he finds himself falling prey to a fluttering of the heart. The quietness of the film, also enriched by elegant camerawork, is broken only by a skilled voiceover that shares poetry about the matters of the heart. The things that are left unsaid carry the most crucial message in the narrative - one about an artist who finds himself at the margins of society, finding solace in a vast expanse marked only by a soul akin to his own kind, about falling in love and getting your heart broken. However, despite any or all obstacles, the pursuit of dreams, and hope, never truly ceases or loses its significance in human existence, and it is precisely this emphatic communication that becomes the final message that smoothly ties the conclusion together.

Roznama | Short Film of the Day

If one were to put it simply, the film is an engagement with the deepest human desire (need?) to find their roots, and to feel loved and a sense of belonging. Be it in the form of a forbidden romance that truly makes you feel like yourself, or seeking closure for a lost memory, to rekindle it to lead to a brighter future, the desire to find and nurture yourself is undeniable, even in the face of all adversity and obstacles, underlines the narrative. By invoking two parallel plot lines, of the past and the present, and bringing to life two generations on screen, the film shares this story with the viewer in Tanisha Rai's notable voice. The thematic concerns are heard loudly and clearly for the audience to experience and participate in, allowing Baba's Black Sheep to become a wholesome, wonderful film, leaving the door open with promise of more such products by the team. The film, however, would have benefited from closer attention to its sound.

Baba's Black Sheep | Short Film of the Month

The importance of art, if it intends to be the fountainhead of societal change, is its ability to simplify and put forth complex ideas, intricacies and nuances of our lived reality. Raja Beta succeeds precisely in achieving that, in holding up the mirror to the patriarchal oppression and discrimination in Indian society. Coupling animated visuals, devoid of clutter or garrulousness, with a skilled, lucid and comprehensive voiceover, the film puts forth its narrative, one that questions an Indian family's biases and hypocrisy manifested in the manner in which they raise their sons and daughters. The film further calls out internalised misogyny and perpetration of rape culture that we often encourage unconsciously in our day-to-day lives. Its message is shared with the viewer in no equivocal terms, allowing the film to be a relevant and much-needed comment on our deeply flawed approach in understanding and handling gender.

Raja Beta | Short Film of the Day

The short film is a calm conversation with grief, longing, heartache and the inexorable passage of time. Based on a short story by Madhumita Dasgupta, it opens on the first death anniversary of a man who is survived by his daughter, living by herself in their house. The narrative progresses to reveal her own struggles and internal obstacles left in the wake of her father's death. The story engages with several aspects of life that range from relationships to the hard, practical realities of life. Its storytelling is further supplemented by a poetic narration by Naseeruddin Shah, moving in and out of the film most organically and smoothly. The film exhibits a sophisticated tying together of visuals that enable it to communicate what it had set out to successfully. While we may forever endeavour to compartmentalise our feelings and rationalise the various events of life, there are indeed some vagaries that transcend all of these categories, underlines the film with its quiet conclusion.

Bin Bulaaye | Short Film of the Day

Indian customs are often deeply-rooted in patriarchal traditions of an age long gone by. Problematic at their core, they are also employed by men to deprive women of agency and the ability to take their own decisions, or even perform important actions, as is true in the case of our protagonist. 

A woman who had left her hometown of Varanasi to move to London, returns for the last rites of her beloved grandmother. Even though the women of the household welcome her back, the patriarch of the family, an uncle, blocks her way at every step. After a refusal to be allowed to perform the final duties for her grandmother, she takes it upon herself to make him see the folly of his ways. 

It is through her attempts to keep pushing, even in the face of all opposition by the men who remain custodians of power that they not only want to assert, but also maintain in a patriarchal society, that the film presents its intentions to the viewer. The arguments it makes, eventually adopting a notable poetic voice for the same, are pertinent. However, the narrative could have gained from a little more ease, effortlessness in its development. It chooses strong actors, but deprives them of an organic pace for the story.

The Last Rights | Short Film of the Day

The music video, Panixiya, opens with a young woman, dressed in the traditional Assamese attire of sador-mekhela, peacefully gazing at a fish in a big bowl of water. She moves inside her mud house and transfers the fish to a smaller bucket. The bucket and its companion travel to calm waters, through the green lands and village roads as a woeful voice sings in the background. The sad, rhythmic melody talks of a pained life, one constituted by umpteen mistakes, distant relationships and unfulfilled emotions. 

Through the notable vocals, tied effortlessly with the visuals unfolding before you, the narrative endeavors a story about existence and its relationship with the human soul, the many struggles that confine and threaten to consume it and its relentless efforts to push through, even when all seems lost and overwhelmed by despair. With no direct translation in the English language, the title of the film thus becomes an evocation of a philosophy which views the fish as our mortal coil swimming in the endless, unpredictable, unknown waters of existence.

Panixiya | Short Film of the Day

A novelist Manmohan is grappling with a writing endeavor when he receives the most unexpected phone call one day. Stationed in the office of a friend while he is out of town, the protagonist only has his thoughts and words for company until this call changes everything. The voice of a woman on the other side captures his existence entirely, leading him down a path of love and adoration from where there is no return. 

The woman, seemingly sincere in her devotion to the novelist, calls him every day while busying herself with adornment, teasing, and an affectionate attitude toward the receiver of all her calls. As the conversation develops between the two, the writing exhibits seamlessness and ease, employing metaphors and poetic expressions to embellish itself. 

Set in the post-Partition era of the twentieth century, the film acquires a softness that defines it. With Urdu at its core and an overall influence of Hindustani sensibilities, it remains consistent in its developments. 

Despite a few snags within production, specifically in the sound department, there is an unmissable chemistry between the two actors. Irrespective of their fate as lovers, the romance and intimacy between them achieve completion within the narratorial progression. The end result keeps the viewer engaged throughout, simply by the verbal exchanges of its characters, deliberately devoid of any other external action, allowing the film to come together cohesively at its conclusion.

Yunhi Khamakhan | Short Film Nominee

Lori (Lullaby) is a quiet and sincere portrayal of life as it came to be during the coronavirus lockdown and quarantine. It achieves the same by taking us into the experiences of a couple. 

Soon after their shift to a new city, the wife finds herself dealing with pregnancy, cooking and other chores, and simply a life without her doctor husband in a locked down world. This, in turn, invokes a reality of emotional isolation, along with very practical, everyday obstacles. The narrative further employs poetry to present a message of hope irrespective of how bleak things may seem at the horizon or how different today might seem from yesterday. 

Additionally, the film maintains its calm tone throughout, and yet, the progression of events comes to be marked by several emotions. They range from annoyance and anger to despair and heartache, until all of them eventually get triumphed by hope, a sense of community and the warmth and solace of loved ones.

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