Village Rockstars

Official Selection, 2017 Toronto International Film Festival
Best Film, India Gold, 2017 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival
Best Feature Film, 2018 National Film Awards
India’s Best Foreign Film submission for 2018 Academy Awards

In an Assam village where floods threaten livelihoods and evoke memories of loved ones past, the kids do what kids do: sneak comic books into school, go fishing with home-made rods, climb the highest trees and idle on the branches without a care in the world. 10-year-old Dhunu is the sole girl amongst her friends, and she has dreams beyond the family farm and the cycles of rain and harvest. On a trip to town, she sees a local rock band, and she and her friends are inspired to carve guitars out of styrofoam and maybe even start a band of their own.

But most of the time, the kids are hanging out in the grass and the river, and director Rima Das watches, in quiet awe. VILLAGE ROCKSTARS doesn’t exotify or glamorize village life. Das, who made the film with family members and cast her own cousin as Dhunu, simply wants to follow the kids’ lead, capturing the sounds they make and the sounds that surround them, finding encouragement from the sprightly spirit of Dhunu who imagines a future for young women as only a child could.

–Brian Hu