When Rima Das shot Village Rockstars in India’s Assam in 2018, it went on to become her country’s Oscar entry. It charted the musical aspirations of a young girl and her friends, and featured a non-professional cast, including the director’s niece Banita Das as the central character, Dhunu. Now, seven years on, the writer/director has returned to the same village and characters in Village Rockstars 2 as Dhunu, now a teenager, finds that the pressures and responsibilities of life and the need to help her ailing mum (played by the youngster’s real-life mother Basanti Das) means she has to put her guitar aside. Although the film catches up with the characters introduced in the first film, you don’t need to have seen the first instalment to enjoy the second, as they are stand-alone stories.
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| Rima Das: With certain subject ideas, sometimes I feel that it’s better I do it myself, because certain subjects need time'' Photo: IND, SGP 2024 |
The film screened in the Generation section of Berlin Film Festival last month and, catching up with Das ahead of the sequel screening at Glasgow Film Festival on Monday, she said that the idea of the sequel came to her while she was shooting the first film and kept seeing striking images of Dhunu and her guitar.
“I started developing it,” she said, “and finally in 2020, I started shooting.”
This time around, Das was working with her cast as teenagers rather than children, which she says did present one or two challenges.
“There were quite a lot of mood changes thatI had to handle, it is not that it was easy. And we started filming just after the first lockdown and with most of my team members, I felt like there was a kind of restlessness. Being the producer and director, I had to handle my mood and their mood also because knowingly and unknowingly the pandemic was affecting everything. I lost my father, also, when I started filming, but I continued. I didn’t stop.”
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| Banita Das as Dhunu in Village Rockstars 2. Rima Das on her star: 'She has a lot of potential and that kept me going' Photo: © Rima Das |
Das has nothing but praise for her young star, who she notes is brave and capable. She added: “She has a lot of potential and that kept me going because the kind of difficulties we faced during the pandemic meant it was not easy to do this film, but I always found her a very powerful presence. I'm so grateful to her also, because it took us four years and it's not easy.
“Also, it was quite challenging compared to the earlier film. More hard work and more complex.”
One of the complexities that was added to the film was an environmental element. The villagers talk about increasingly regular floods which ruin their crops - and which caused the death of Dhunu’s father. The locals are also under pressure from unscrupulous developers to sell their land.
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| Rima Das and Banita Das on the red carpet in Berlin Photo: Flying River Films |
Das said: “I knew very well that bringing all these elements together would not be easy because it's not a documentary.”
She admitted: “I somehow lost it, especially in the edit. I realised there were a lot of loopholes. There were beautiful scenes but how to put them together was a challenge for me as an editor. But I was quite determined to talk about nature and what is happening.”
The director says she was aware that the subject is also time sensitive and that she wanted to tackle it now “not three years later when it will be too late.”
Das said that she came across the development about four months before she finished the film and that bringing it in added a complication to the script and the story.
She said: “It took almost more than a year to edit and fix everything in putting it together.”
One of the elements that comes across not just in her Village Rockstars films but also in Bulbul Can Sing, is how quickly children are forced to move from childhood to adulthood because of the responsibilities that are thrust upon them.
“I think especially for children from financially challenged families, adulthood comes faster. In villages they start working when they become ten or 12 years old. In the fields or their parents are working so they need to take care of the household work. So I see that responsibility, that is true.”
Another issue that is referenced in the film is drinking alcohol, with one male character, in particular, having a problematic relationship with it.
“I see a lot of men drinking nowadays,” Das said. “We are more indigenous people but now suddenly because of globalisation it is becoming commercial. A lot of outsiders are coming and doing business. The lifestyle is changing drastically. Also, with the internet and smartphones and even the market is flooded with too many products. They want them when earlier they were happy with their simple lifestyle. Because of all these changes the financial situation is more challenging now and, how to put it, they are not looking at the long term value sometimes.”
There are moments of high emotion in the sequel and as the non-professionals from Das’ first film have returned it’s clear they are getting more skilled in front of the camera.
“I was really happy with their performance,” she said. “This time I think their roles were more complex.”
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| Bhanita Das, Chayanika Rabha and Junumoni Boro as friends in Village Rockstars 2 Photo: © Rima Das |
Speaking about nurturing the performances, she adds: “I also come from an acting background. Before making movies, I wanted to be an actor. That was my first dream. So I know a certain way to bring the performance.”
Das is a powerhouse, acting as her own cinematographer as well as producing and directing her films but she says that she is hoping to collaborate more in the future.
She said: “I already did a film that’s called My Melbourne and we shot it in Melbourne. It’s being released on March 14 in India. I have been doing other projects with professional actors and collaborating with other like-minded people. That’s very nice. With certain subject ideas, sometimes I feel that it’s better I do it myself, because certain subjects need time and, with collaboration, sometimes that’s not possible.”
Das added that she would also like to try her hand at different genres. “Time will tell if I’m good at doing that,” she said, “But I would love to explore because I don’t want to feel monotonous.
“I don’t want to leave these sorts of films an do something else, I just would love to have a balance. This process is very satisfying for me and you can discover so many things in that process as a human being. It’s not just making a movie for me, it’s a journey. It’s so beautiful and you can bring nuances, you know, and that is only possible with solitude and this kind of freedom. Then again, I suppose on the other hand, sometimes you don't want to spend maybe four or five years on a project. It's a lot of investment of time and soI guess it's handy or maybe better if you can maybe do some films that are more confined. There are a lot of stories around and if I take four years to just tell one story, it is a lot. I would love to do more in a more limited time.”
Village Rockstars 2 screens at Glasgow Film Theatre on Monday, March 3 at 6.15pm. Buy tickets here.
