13th DIFF wrap-up: Dibakar Banerjee, Shahana Goswami, Rima Das, film fraternity elevate conversations on South Asian cinema

Sneak peak from DIFF 2024: (clockwise from top, left) PictureTime 1 portable screen; Dibakar Banerjee; Rima Das at the screening of her film; Shahana Goswami (right) in a conversation with Bina Paul.

The sky was grey and the air chilly but the 13th edition of the Dharamshala International Film festival, in Tibetan Children’s Village in McLeod Ganj, over four days from November 7-10, kept the spirits high.

ALSO READ: Dibakar Banerjee’s ‘shelved’ Tees, All We Imagine as Light, Pooja, Sir to screen at DIFF 2024

The festival, which included over 80 films being screened over four days, began with the screening of Wisdom of Happiness, a deeply intimate and highly cinematic documentary featuring the Dalai Lama. The film captures the spiritual leader offering practical advice on navigating modern challenges in the 21st century and evoked an emotional response from the audience that included a large Tibetan populace.

The Dalai Lama’s sister, Jetsun Pema, was the special guest for DIFF’s opening ceremony that featured, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and a performance by students of the Tibetan Children’s Village school. The Malayalam film about three Indian women and how they navigate their lives in Mumbai has been accumulating accolades and appreciation ever since it was awarded the Grand Prix in Cannes in May, and at DIFF, it was screened across all four screens which were packed to the rafters.

DIFF 2024.

Premieres and critically acclaimed titles were sprinkled across the days with attendees queueing up for documentaries like Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan’s Nocturnes, on a small, ephemeral, nocturnal creature like the moth, filmmakers seek to question a human-centric view of the world, and Vani Subramanian’s Cinema Pe Cinema: The Theatres. The Movies. And Us, which meanders through theatres in small towns and big cities across India, creating a memoryscape of women and men whose lives were touched by single screen cinemas. And Fazil Razak’s Malayalam film Thadavu (The Sentence), the audience winner at International Film Festival of Kerala in 2023, which “captures human emotions, and not female emotions.”

For over a decade, DIFF has run impactful outreach programmes to bring the magic of cinema to local communities across the Himalayan region. These initiatives include film screenings and discussions in schools and colleges including Gamru Village School, Mewoen Tsuglak Petoen Tibetan School and Wood Whistlers School, and the Dharamshala District Jail.

DAY 2

DIFF 2024 at Tibetan's Children's Village, Dharamshala.

Second day of the festival enthralled and wowed the audiences in equal measure. The day’s proceedings kickstarted with Nilesh Maniyar and Shonali Bose’s A Fly on the Wall, which explores themes of death and friendship, trains the lens on Bose’s friend Chika Kapadia’s last days as he opts for a physician-assisted suicide. Achal Mishra’s fourth film the mid-length Chaar Phool Hain Aur Duniya Hai documents a conversation between renowned Hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla and actor Manav Kaul and chronicles the artist’s life through mundane moments.

The panel discussion ‘Championing Indigenous Cinema’, featuring Darren Dale, managing director of Blackfella Films, and Nashen Moodley, director of the Sydney Film Festival, was a thought-provoking conversation on the importance of creating an environment that nurtures indigenous voices in Australian cinema, and around the world. The bold discussion deep-dived into the state of funding indigenous storytelling and the hesitation to support boldness and authenticity.

Screenings of two Palestinian films No Other Land and From Ground Zero were cancelled because permissions for screenings these films didn’t come through to DIFF festival organisers.

In their place, a last-minute addition to the festival was Min Bahadur Bham’s Nepalese drama Shambhala, which is the country’s official Oscar entry. The film explores multiple themes of polyandry, self-exploration, and the meaning of life through monkhood, worldly pleasures, and interpersonal relationships.

The Asia Premiere of American filmmaker Errol Morris’ new documentary Separated, on Trump administration’s practice of taking children from their parents at the southern border, was another exciting watch for film lovers.

But the day ended with the highly acclaimed Indian filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee’s much-talked about unreleased film Tees, which has been shelved by Netflix, had people excitedly lining up for two hours before the screening. A courageous exploration of dystopia in the current Indian scenario while also giving a daring glimpse to the future through three decades-long stories, the film sharply divided the audience. Much as the filmmaker intended as he has said in the past that “Tees was made to spite his Khosla ka Ghosla audience”.

DAY 3

Audience at Dibakar Banerjee's conversation at DIFF 2024.

Saturday saw the first-ever Tibetan language anthology film State of Statelessness, directed by Tibetan filmmakers in India, Vietnam and the US, including festival co-founders Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam. Another local highlight was the beautifully shot Second Chance, a debut film by Himachal Pradesh-raised Subhadra Mahajan, attended by her father Harsh Mahajan, Rajya Sabha member.

As part of DIFF’s collaboration with the Sydney Film Festival, Allan Clarke’s The Dark Emu Story, a documentary that revisits Bruce Pascoe’s controversial book on Aboriginal history, was an eye-opening watch.

Bollywood director Dibakar Banerjee.

Dibakar Banerjee hosted a masterclass – 'Making Cinema in Post-Modern, Post-Truth Times' – for young, aspiring filmmakers, on Saturday morning in a packed amphitheatre, who held on to every word and advice and life wisdom that the director shared.

Saturday also saw the world premiere of Onir’s 'We Are Faheem And Karun', a poignant portrayal of love, identity and repression in a region steeped in conflict.

Sandhya Suri’s immersive and compelling drama Santosh – the UK’s official entry for the Oscar – witnessed long queues at Hermann Gmeiner Hall, and was attended by its titular actor Shahana Goswami, who was also in conversation with DIFF programming director Bina Paul on Sunday.

DAY 4

Programme coordinator Bina Paul and actor Shahana Goswami in conversation at DIFF 2024.

The final day of DIFF witnessed the best of South Asian cinema with titles like acclaimed Indian director Rima Das’s Village Rockstars 2 opening the day and Nepalese director Deepak Rauniyar’s Pooja, Sir closing the festival.

Village Rockstars 2, which premiered at Busan International Film Festival, is a highly anticipated follow-up to her 2017 festival darling, and the audiences at DIFF appreciated Rima’s trademark storytelling style. The Assamese filmmaker was also part of a panel called, ‘Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors: Reclaiming Identity Through Film’ – featuring filmmakers like Pranami Koch, Jhansy Giting Dokgre Marak and Tenzin Tsetan Choklay – to look at how filmmakers use the act of storytelling to bridge the gaps between cultural memory, marginalisation, and the dislocation of personal heritage.

Filmmaker Rima Das (centre) with Monica Wahi (left) introducing her film Village Rockstars 2 at DIFF 2024.

Another highlight of the final day was the Bhutanese-Hungarian production Agent of Happiness, a quiet, gently absorbing documentary that follows two “happiness agents” as they travel door-to-door, like census workers, collecting data for the government’s happiness survey. The film witnessed a repeat screening that evening. In attendance was Hemraj Bairwa, IAS deputy commissioner Kangra, Himachal Pradesh.

Actress Shahana Goswami shared valuable insights for inspiring actors and film enthusiasts in a freewheeling chat with DIFF’s director of programming Bina Paul, and the Santosh-actor answered the scores of audience questions that came her way.

Kinshuk Surjan’s feature debut Marching in the Dark, on how the growing number of suicides among farmers in India affects their widows, won the Film Critics Guild’s Gender Sensitivity Award.

Day 4 also saw packed houses to the screenings of Shuchi Talati’s Sundance-winning coming-of-age drama Girls Will Be Girls and Deepak Rauniyar’s police procedural Pooja, Sir, a race-against-time thriller, that offers a portrait of Nepal as a complex society on the edge of a new future. The film stars Rauniyar’s partner and actress Asha Magarati – also the film’s co-writer – who battled cancer while filming the movie. The film was a fitting end to the 13th edition that highlighted films on social issues and a greater number of women filmmakers (around 28 feature films and short films) from India and around the world.

Nepali filmmaker Deepak Rauniyar (left) and actor-producer Asha Magarati at DIFF 2024.

DIFF 2024 was made possible with funding from Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and National Film Development Corporation. PictureTime continued their partnership with DIFF, with their portable inflatable digital cinemas to provide the big screen experience. Among stalls were art activities for the attendees, as the festival partnered with KNMA (Kiran Nadar Museum of Art) to put up two art walls, where anyone could go add their own touch.

DIFF remains a unique film festival, among the best in India, that is a safe haven for independent cinema, and does community engagement programmes. Until next time.