Notes from an unread chapter

Dipankar Sarkar

The theme of militancy in Punjab has been explored by many filmmakers. Many films have been made on the subject but Raghbir Singh Toor’s short film Two Brothers (Do Bhara in Punjabi) offers a fresh perspective on the turbulent years. It is the first Punjabi short film to be screened at the Busan International Film Festival. Also screened in the Voices Short section of Rotterdam Film Festival in 2018, the film won the Best Film Jury Award at the Seventh Dadasaheb Phalke Film Festival and the Jury Award at the sixth Bangalore Short Film Festival.

Growing up in the Barmalipur village in Ludhiana, Raghbir Singh Toor, aka R B Singh, was never inclined towards filmmaking. He became interested in filmmaking after a cousin’s friend introduced him to the gems of American cinema when he moved to Melbourne in 2011. However, it was after watching Gurvinder Singh’s National Award-winning Punjabi film Anhey Ghode Da Daan in 2013 that he decided to make Two Brothers in Punjabi.

Set in the early 1990s in Barmalipur village, 30 km from Ludhiana, the 20-minute-long film examines the trauma faced by people during the turbulent decade. 

According to the filmmaker, “While the characters are fictional, the story isn’t. As a child, I had heard many stories about militancy in Punjab. One of my uncles, too, was a militant during those days. So the story was already there. I only had to join the pieces. I shared the idea with my producer and co-writer Amardeep Singh Khokhar. Since then, there’s been no looking back.”

Most of the actors in the film are non-actors and common people from the village. According to the director, the film isn’t being released on any platform since he is planning to develop the short into a full length feature film. 

According to the director, Punjabi cinema today is dominated by mainstream cinema and there are not enough filmmakers making original films. But for a rare filmmaker like Gurvinder Singh, he says, there are very few filmmakers making good Punjabi cinema. The milieu of Gurvinder’s films is Punjabi society but cinema buffs from around the world can relate to his films, he adds.