Sundance film fest to screen Indian docu features on moths and village electricity
Times of India | 22 January 2024
Kolkata: Two feature-length documentaries by Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan are creating waves internationally. “Nocturnes”, the director-duo’s journey into the secret world of moths, will have its world premiere in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the ongoing 2024 Sundance Film Festival on Monday. Recently, “Flickering Lights (FL)”, their documentary on how a Naga village in Manipur got electricity, won the top prize in cinematography at the international competition at the 2023 edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
Sundance has been a big hit with Indian documentaries in the recent past with works like “Against the Tide”, “All That Breathes” and “Writing with Fire” making headlines there.“Nocturnes” transports viewers to the dense forests of the eastern Himalayas where in the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on the secret world of moths. Ecologist Mansi sets out on a quest to study moths in one of the most vibrant places on earth. She teams up with Bicki, a young man from the indigenous Bugun community, to seek clues about what the future has in store for the moths. Together, they put up light screens that transform into a dynamic canvas with moths creating a painterly effect. The docu has been co-edited by Srinivasan and has Sukanta Majumdar as its location sound recordist.
“Flickering Lights was filmed near the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur’s Tora village. Made in the Tangkhul language, the documentary is about a village that was supposed to get electricity after 70 years of India’s independence. There were three-four futile previous attempts at electrification. “This film tried to understand what happens to the process of so-called development because of a village getting or not getting electricity. In the process, it also examined how people in this part of India feel alienated,” Dutta said.
Srinivasan, who is the principal cinematographer and editor of “FL”, said, “I am not a cinematographer per se but was trained in direction at FTII. When it comes to documentaries they are very inter-linked. For me, holding the camera was part of direction. Technically I am very poor but I picked up enough skills to look at the world the way I wanted to see it. Initially, Anirban and I jointly decided on the cinematic style. We decided to use a small camera that is unobtrusive and good in low light. But I was very keen to be the person behind the camera.”
The IDFA jury gave the award to “FL for the “directorial vision of cinematography”. “We were told that just beautiful shots do not make a film. This is a film which has a very different texture and an organic feel. We challenged ourselves to go beyond beautiful images. They asked us how this was achieved. We told them how we had had lengthy discussions on how to look at the village. We were influenced by film-makers like Yasujiro Ozu and Abbas Kiarostami,” Dutta said.
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