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| Indraneil Sengupta in III Smoking Barrels |
The
beauty of Northeast India still lies untapped. Perhaps, it has something to do
with the remoteness of the place in context to mainland India which is
connected to northeastern states by just a narrow stretch of land called Chicken’s Neck aka Siliguri Corridor. Northeast India, sometimes also referred
to as Far East India, is a home of endless diversities whose grandeur lies in its
austerity. When we talk of the northeastern states we are not only referring to
the 8 states viz. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram,
Nagaland, Tripura, and Sikkim but also to the 200 odd dialects and the people of
various ethnicities that inhabit the place. Such is the beguiling beauty of
Northeast India that it seems to ooze with endless possibilities of cinematic
storytelling and yet we have few examples of filmmakers who have made an
attempt to capture its austere grandeur on a motion picture camera. One
filmmaker who seems to have succeeded in doing so is Sanjib Dey, with his debut
film III Smoking Barrels—an anthology of three stories from Northeast India—which began its film festival journey with an official
selection at the 38th Durban International Film Festival 2017. Since then it has traveled sucessfully all over the world, winning a handful of accolades. After a long wait, the film's trailer has finally been released. III Smoking Barrels is slated to release all across India on 21st September 2018.
The three stories that constitute the film are inspired by true events and in order to keep the portrayal as realistic as possible the film's narrative is devised multilingually, in the vein of Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu's groundbreaking masterpiece Babel, as a seamless blend of 6 languages viz. English, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Nagamese, and Manipuri.
The three stories that constitute the film are inspired by true events and in order to keep the portrayal as realistic as possible the film's narrative is devised multilingually, in the vein of Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu's groundbreaking masterpiece Babel, as a seamless blend of 6 languages viz. English, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Nagamese, and Manipuri.
Filmed
over a period of 2 years across various locations in Northeast India, III
Smoking Barrel has an ensemble cast that features the likes of Indraneil
Sengupta (Kahaani, Satyagraha, 1920), Subrat Dutta (Talaash,
Tevar, Bhoothnath Returns), Nalneesh Neel (Raees, Shuddh Desi Romance,
Veerappan), Amrita Chattopadhyay (Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa, Janla Diye Bou Palalo), Mandakini
Goswami (Bandit Queen, The Warrior), Bijou Thaangjam (Mary Kom, Shivaay). As mentioned earlier, III
Smoking Barrels is essentially an anthology of 3 stories but what makes it
unique is that each tries to explore a different stage of human life—childhood,
boyhood and manhood—while separately addressing an important socio-political
issue. The first story revolves around a desperate girl child who hijacks a car
following her escape from a rebel camp. The story endeavors to delve deep into
the trauma of children involved in armed conflicts. The second story follows a
boy’s journey into the abyss that’s the drug world. The final story explores
the troubled life of an elephant poacher and the powerful nexus that controls
the illegal business.
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| Subrat Dutta (right) and Nalneesh Neel in III Smoking Barrels |
These
evocative stories draw a lot from the life experiences of writer-director Sanjib
Dey who himself hails from the northeastern state of Assam. After completing
his graduation from Delhi University, Dey joined an advertising agency before
getting associated with a television show as an apprentice. He subsequently
moved to Mumbai wherein he was presented the opportunity to work under the
veteran ad-filmmaker and FTII-Pune alumnus Sunil Ghosh. Over the last decade or
so Sanjb has worked with prominent filmmakers like Govind Nihalani, Habib
Faisal, R. Sarath, Sekhar Ghosh, and, more recently, Australian director Sean
Lynch for an international TV show in Afghanistan called Eagle Four that won Seoul International Drama Award in 2011. Sanjib has also directed a few
non-fiction shows for Indian Television. His short film A Reasonable Compromise
was screened at various film festivals including Court Metrage – Short Film
Corner, Cannes 2012. Another short film The 100 Watt Bulb, which he produced, won him the J. Abraham National Award and
the Indian Documentary Producer’s Association (IDPA) Award for Best Short
Fiction. He was also a speaker at the prestigious TEDxSaraighat 2014. Produced
by Amit Malpani under the banner of Malpani Talkies, III Smoking Barrels is his début feature film as a director. The
film will be screened at the 38th Durban International Film Festival on 16th
and 21st July 2017.
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