Bhojpuri film wins Silver Bear at Berlin festival

PUNE: Even as Bhojpuri films continue to draw flak from those that will do anything to stop these films from being showed in theatres in Maharashtra, Bhojpuri cinema has just witnessed a quiet victory — far away from the glaring eyes of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists.

Udedh Bun a short film made by Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student Siddharth Sinha, recently became the first Bhojpuri short film in any international film festival when it was selected for the ongoing Berlin International Film Festival. On Tuesday night it won a Silver Bear award for the best short film in the competition category — the first ever in the history of Bhojpuri cinema.

Sinha, who hails from a Bengali family, made this film in Bhojpuri out of sheer love for the language. "When an unborn hears a particular music or a song when it is in the womb it sometimes responds to such voices later in life. So is the case with me as I was born in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, where people speak Bhojpuri. Though I later shifted to Delhi at a very young age, Bhojpuri did make an impact on me," he told TOI in an exclusive interview from Berlin, shortly after winning the award.

"I would like to tag Bhojpuri films as 'folk films'. I think that is the reason they have become so popular among the Bhojpuri-speaking audience and also the general audience," he said.

Udedh Bun is a coming of age film of a teenage boy and two women in his life, his lover, a married woman waiting for her husband to return from the city where he works and his mother, at home and sick. The boy can't stand her sickness but is emotionally dependent on her. "Frankly, I have seen only one Bhojpuri film Nadiya Ke Par till date, but it made a huge impact on me owing to its simplicity and basic nature," says Sinha.

And though Sinha is currently working on a Hindi film, he is very keen on working on another Bhojpuri film in the future.

And what was the response to a Bhojpuri film at a festival as prestigious as the Berlin film festival? "Oh, people have received the film very well here. Mine was the only film from India at this competition. That's all the more reason for me to be proud of my country and FTII," Sinha says.