How these three Indian indie filmmakers backed themselves to tell unique stories

Tales that didnrsquot make it to booksFor Sainath Ganuwad his Marathi short film Zadavar Korleli Gosht A Story Carved on a Tree began some years ago An FTII graduate Ganuwad was working during a fellowship on ideas around generational trauma survival and stories passed from one generation to another The script didnrsquot come together immediately The title captures what he was trying to say ldquoOur stories are not written in booksrdquo he says ldquoMy ancestors have written those stories on stones on trees or through oral traditionsrdquoSainath GanuwadThe film follows a young girl trying to get to school She asks why the bus doesnrsquot come to her village The filmrsquos concerns are rooted in Ganuwadrsquos own experience Growing up in Nanded and later moving to Pune he became conscious of the gulf between urban privilege and rural access Even caste he says was something he understood more clearly only by looking back at his childhood ldquoWhen I was small I didnrsquot know caste When I look back then I realiserdquoShot near Khed Shivapur outside Pune with a small selffunded team the film turned its restrictions into part of its process ldquoWhen creativity gets deadlines or restrictions then it actually blooms morerdquo he saysCrew members doubled up on jobs and worked within a threeday shoot Winning the Indian Competition at the Bengaluru International Short Film Festival and becoming Academy Awardseligible wasnrsquot the original ambition Ganuwad wanted something more fundamental ldquoWe feel that by making a film you actually learn filmmakingrdquoThe 12year journey to tell a Tibetan storyFor Shenpenn Khymsar 4 Rivers 6 Ranges isnrsquot merely a film about the Chushi Gangdrukrsquos mission to take the 14th Dalai Lama to safety in 1959 It is tied to his own relationship with exile Tibet and a generation whose memories are disappearingStill from 4 Rivers 6 RangesKhymsar spent 12 years researching and making the film speaking to people connected to that history and digging through books and archival material The film will be released in theatres on September 18 a first for a Tibetan story in IndiaThe idea began when Khymsar was reading about the mission ldquoSomeone should make a movie on this But at that time I didnrsquot think it would be merdquo he saysShenpenn KhymsarWatching an older generation in exile disappear he began to feel an urgency around who would preserve the Tibetan narrative ldquoThe Chinese are always going on with their propaganda I felt that we are losing grip of the Tibetan narrativerdquo he says For Khymsar the answer was cinema ldquoI have put my blood and sweat into this film literallyrdquoThe shoot he estimates should have taken 45 days was completed in fewer than 19 He wrote the screenplay handled action direction and worked on the music tooAfter the filmrsquos international festival run it was the response of audiences that gave him another kind of reassurance ldquoAudiences felt immersed transported to that erardquoFor Khymsar though the larger purpose remains the same holding on to stories before they disappearFrom medicine to filmmakingGarvit Singh was studying for his postgraduate medical entrance exams when a onehour study break changed the course of his life He put on Stanley Kubrickrsquos The Shining By the end of it he had decided he wanted to make films ldquoIt was very very instantrdquo he saysStill from Zimmedari Umeed Azadi SandyeepWhat struck him wasnrsquot simply the filmrsquos horror It was the possibility of art itself ldquoYou realise the power of art at that time You realise how infinite it isrdquoThat impulse became Zimmedari Umeed Azadi Sandyeep a psychological thriller about Sandeep whose attempt to reconnect with his father during a road trip is disrupted by a childhood bullyThe film itself grew out of another image a bruised 10yearold boy in torn muddy clothes standing outside a modest house ldquoThat image stayed with me because it portrays a loss of innocence a sense of getting detached from your family trying to get back to your familyrdquoSingh knew his unconventional first feature was unlikely to attract conventional financing So he stopped waiting He financed the film himself drawing on his earnings as a practising doctor and borrowing from friends The film cost approximately Rs 65 lakhGarvit SinghYet he says the money barely entered his head while he was shooting ldquoI was too engrossed in filming I just wanted to do itrdquoThe bigger shock came afterwards ldquoMaking a film is very very addictiverdquo he says ldquoItrsquos what will happen after making a film Thatrsquos the most difficult partrdquo For an indie filmmaker he says finding an audience can be harder than making the film His experience has taught him that platforms help but backing still matters Now on BookMyShow Stream the film marks the end of one journey and the beginning of another ldquoI want to move on to my second projectrdquo