''Chauranga'' is a 2016 Hindi film. It is the debut feature film of

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

n writer-director Bikas Ranjan Mishra, produced by

Onir Onir (born Anirban Dhar, 1 May 1969) is an Indian film and TV director, editor, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his film ''My Brother…Nikhil'', based on the life of Dominic d'Souza, starring Sanjay Suri and Purab Kohli ''it'' ...

and Sanjay Suri. The film was developed at the Screenwriters' Lab organized by National Film Development Corporation of India in collaboration with

Locarno Film Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, s ...

and the ScriptStation of Berlinale Talent Campus, a part of

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

. The Film won Golden Gateway of India Award for Best Film (India Gold 2014) at the 16th Mumbai Film Festival. The film was released worldwide on 8 January 2016.

Plot

This is based on Dalit-Brahmin relations in the villages tells how Dalits are exploited. A fourteen-year-old

Dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a ...

boy (Soham Maitra) is growing up in an unnamed corner of India. His dream is to go to a town school like his elder brother (

Riddhi Sen Riddhi Sen is an Indian film actor who predominantly works in Bengali films. He is a regular actor of the theatre group Swapnasandhani and is an alumnus of South Point school, Kolkata. In 2010, he received a special talent award from his school ...

) and his reality is to look after the pig that his family owns. His only escape is to sit atop a Jamun tree and adore his beloved (

Ena Saha Ena Saha (born 28 May 1996), is an Indian film and television actress who predominantly appears in Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an e ...

) passing by on her scooter. His unspoken love is as true as his mother’s helplessness who cleans the cowsheds of the local Brahmin's mansion, with whom she also has a secret liaison. When the boy’s elder brother comes on a vacation to the village, he soon finds out about his younger brother’s infatuation. The learned elder brother makes him realize the need to express his love and helps him write a love letter.

Cast

*Soham Maitra as Santu *

as Mona *

as Bajrangi * Sanjay Suri as Dhaval * Tannishtha Chatterjee as Dhaniya *

Dhritiman Chatterjee Dhritiman Chatterjee is an Indian actor. He began his acting career in 1970 as the protagonist of Satyajit Ray's ''Pratidwandi'' (''The Adversary''). Most of his acting work has been in India's "parallel", or independent, cinema with filmmaker ...

as Lali Pandey, the blind priest * Swatilekha Sengupta as Dhaval's mother * Arpita Chatterjee as Nidhi * Anshuman Jha as Raghu *Delzad Hiwale as Shambhu

Development

Bikas Mishra's script was selected by the National Film Development Corporation in 2010 for its Screenwriters' Lab organized at

. The script was later selected by Berlinale Talent Campus' ScriptStation program. Marten Rabarts, the artistic director of Amsterdam-based Binger FilmLab consulted Bikas on the script at both the labs.

Awards

*Grand Jury Prize for Best Film at 13th Indian Film Festival Of Los Angeles 2015 (IFFLA) * Golden Gateway of India for Best Film (India Gold) at 16th Mumbai Film Festival 2014 * ''Chauranga'' won "Incredible India" Award for the best project of co-production market, at the NFDC Film Bazaar, International Film Festival of India, Goa 2011 and Script Funding from Goteborg International Film Festival, Sweden.

References

External links

* * {{Official website, http://www.anticlockfilms.com/films/chauranga/ 2014 films 2010s Hindi-language films Films shot in India Films about the caste system in India Indian avant-garde and experimental films 2010s avant-garde and experimental films