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A dream debut

Debutant director Ridham Janve shot The Gold-Laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain, which is headed to the Bright Future competition section of the upcoming International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR, January 23-February 3), with non-actors, local crew members and a shoestring budget in 2015.

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Saibal Chatterjee

Debutant director Ridham Janve shot The Gold-Laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain, which is headed to the Bright Future competition section of the upcoming International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR, January 23-February 3), with non-actors, local crew members and a shoestring budget in 2015.He had a first cut ready “within five months of the idea being conceived” and even participated in the Work in Progress Lab of the NFDC Film Bazaar in Goa in 2016. But it took the filmmaker a long time to formally unveil his first feature before the world.

“I produced the film myself,” says Janve, an alumnus of the National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad who was raised in Udaipur, Rajasthan, and currently lives in Goa. “Every step along the way, therefore, was very difficult. So it is a big relief for him that the film has made the Rotterdam cut. I am hoping it will get seen there by people who have an interest in this kind of cinema.”

The Gold-Laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain is soaked with the hardy spirit of the locations where it was filmed — the Chamba and Kangra regions under the shadow of the imposing Dhauladhar range. A languid meditation on the rhythms of life in a pastoral community of shepherds, the film captures an entire spectrum of nature’s moods — from the benign to the terrifying.

Is Janve banking on Rotterdam to open the doors to the European market given that his film isn’t of the kind that Indian audiences easily relate to? “I know the film is experimental in terms of form but for me, it is also a narrative film,” he says, adding that the response that it got at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, where it won the Silver Gateway award, was encouraging. 

He adds: “I was concerned that the audience in Mumbai wouldn’t get the film and would find it slow and boring but at the end of the show many wished the film was longer so that they could stay with mountains for some more time.” He is, therefore, hopeful that The Gold-Laden Sheep will find an audience in India, if only “in a niche way”. “Beauty is only one aspect of nature,” says Janve, who spent many months living among the Gaddi tribe. He chose to make the film in the local dialect in the interest of authenticity. “My endeavour in The Gold-Laden Sheep… is to capture nature in all its forms and avoid the picture-postcard quality that travel shows strive for.”

Though not cast in the mould of a regular narrative, The Gold-Laden Sheep… does have a story to tell. It hinges on an old Gaddi shepherd (played by Bhedpal Arjun Pant) who sets out on a life-altering search for a fighter jet that has crashed in the mountains, sparking rumours that it had gold and silver on board. The film weaves into the plot the legend of a sacred mountain from where few have ever returned. 

Blending the harshness of the landscape and the challenges that it poses to the people who live here. In these parts, mystery and mysticism merge imperceptibly with the human lives, the needs of the animals and the whims of the elements.“The making of the film was an organic process. During the weeks and months I spent in a village here, I realised that these people had many stories,” he says.   

Janve, who had an aborted mainstream film project behind him when he embarked upon The Gold-Laden Sheep adventure, asserts that he does not aspire to be a filmmaker who makes only one kind of cinema. “I want to make films of different genres. The substance of the film that I make will determine the form that I embrace,” he explains.

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