Udhed Bun (Unravel) by Siddharth Sinha has won the 58th Berlin film festival’s Silver Bear, also called the Jury Prize, for short films.
Sidhharth Sinha’s 21-minute Bhojpuri flick bags Silver Bear at one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world
BERLIN: Udhed Bun (Unravel) by Siddharth Sinha has won the 58th Berlin film festival’s Silver Bear, also called the Jury Prize, for short films. The 21-minute film in Bhojpuri, shot on 35mm, is the diploma film of Sinha, who graduated in direction last year from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune.
The film is a coming of age story about a small town teenage boy who is attracted to the milkmaid. It is a great triumph for India, and long years since an Indian film won a Silver Bear at such a prestigious festival as Berlin.
A Ghazipur (UP)-born psychology graduate, Sinha looked disbelieving as he strode onstage in a black leather jacket to pick up his prize last night. “I did not imagine I would win the Silver Bear,” says Sinha. “I would like to acknowledge director Mani Kaul, our professor who did a lot to guide my diploma film. I didn’t plan to enter the film in Berlin as it is expensive, but Mani Sir insisted and paid the fees himself,” he added. Sinha has also made the music video for Kailash Kher’s Dilruba.
Congratulating Sinha, Berlin festival director Dieter Kosslick said, “We all know that Shah Rukh Khan has millions of fans—and we have seen some of them ourselves. But thank God there is another cinema from India as well.” The jury, consisting of Marc Barbé, Ada Solomon and Laura Tonke, awarded Udhed Bun “for its modern narration, a sharp focus that relies on the harmony between images and sound, rather than words” and “the new erotica”. It includes tasteful but powerful scenes of the young boy watching the half-nude milkmaid bathing languorously; and once, in the sugarcane fields, she puts his hand over her stomach — and he withdraws his hand to find it covered with blood.
The film has an unhurried assurance and very little dialogue. Its cast includes Alok Rajwade, Swati Sengupta and Shubhangi Damle, and it has contributions from cinematographer Dhirendra Shukla, sound designer Alok Tiwari and editor Suchitra Sathe. The Golden Bear for short film went to O zi bunã de plajã by Bogdan Mustaþã (Romania). The Berlinale Shorts received over 1000 entries worldwide.
The FTII has produced a double bill at Berlin—Siddharth Sinha’s Udhed Bun and Umesh Kulkarni’s Three of Us, both in the Berlinale Shorts.
Three of Us is a moving
documentary about the parents of a spastic man coping with the situation with a humbling dignity. Kulkarni’s student films Darshan and Girni have been at festivals worldwide, and his debut feature Valu was recently shown at the Rotterdam festival.
Sinha’s earlier short film Rangbela (Colours of Time) was shown at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). The director had also been selected in 2006 for the Berlinale Talent Campus, which mentors aspiring filmmakers. “If you make a film with conviction and soul, it is bound to connect with the audience,” says Sinha, who intends to complete his feature film script next month.
(Meenakshi Shedde is on the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Jury of the Berlin film festival 2008)
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