On DIFF’s day two, Anuparna Roy reveals how a rough cut of ‘Songs of Forgotten Trees’ reached Venice

India’s independent cinema is alive and thriving; it just needs to reach its audience. That was the prevailing sentiment on day two of the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), where filmmakers gathered to discuss the evolving landscape of indie filmmaking, the struggle for visibility, and the art of staying true to one’s vision.

The festival hosted two major sessions on Friday, including a special masterclass on legendary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, attended by his son Andrey Tarkovsky.

The day began with a panel discussion titled ‘From Vision to Reality: The Making of Indie Cinema’, featuring Anuparna Roy (winner of the Orizzonti Award for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival for ‘Songs of Forgotten Trees’), ‘Sabar Bonda’ director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, Bhutanese filmmaker Dechen Wangmo Roder (‘I, The Son’), and Nidhi Saxena, director of ‘Secret of a Mountain Serpent’. The session was moderated by Prathyush Parasuraman.

“I don’t think anyone makes films designing them for festivals. You make it because you are emotional, you want to say something,” said Roy, whose ‘Songs of Forgotten Trees’ will be the closing film at DIFF this year.

The filmmaker shared how a stroke of urgency landed her debut feature in Venice. “I ended up sending a very rough cut to the festival! They already had seven Indian films under consideration, and we were late. They ended up replying on July 18, saying that the film was being considered. It was a great experience at Venice. The film won, and people loved it.”

Joining her on the panel, 'Sabar Bonda' director Rohan Kanawade revealed how his Sundance-winning film was deemed “a difficult sell” by several European and American sales agents.

“They said, ‘So sorry we are passing the film.’ I thought, should I make the film that can be easy for you to sell? I cannot make a film that everyone else wants to watch; it will be made the way I want to. You have to make an honest film and have patience for things to work out,” said Kanawade.

He also pointed out that September marked a breakthrough month for independent cinema, with acclaimed titles like ‘Sabar Bonda’, ‘Jugnuma’, and ‘Humans in the Loop’ finding theatrical releases.

“In the next few years, there should not be any terms like independent or non-independent... There should just be cinema. Last month, we saw so many films releasing theatrically and people went to watch them. If you make the film available to them, they will go and watch it,” Kanawade added.

Dechen Wangmo Roder spoke about the practical challenges of sustaining creativity within tight budgets and stressed, “Of course, it is very hard to shoot low-budget, but I feel that’s the only way to go for me now: to sacrifice the budget. For the next film I am producing for a friend right now, we have got a grant for Rs 10 lakhs, and we’re thinking, let us try. We don’t need to depend on anything else.”

Nidhi Saxena, who has helmed two acclaimed indie titles, ‘Secret of a Mountain Serpent’ and ‘Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman’, reflected on the risks of working without institutional backing. “I know that no Indian or foreign producer is going to give money to make an experimental film. My films were only possible because of chance. To make my first film, I sold something and I did not have anything to sell for the second film, so I kept applying for grants.”

Later in the day, a special session, ‘Spiritual Cinema’, witnessed Andrey Tarkovsky in conversation with Tenzing Sonam, where he reflected on his father’s legacy. “Living with him as a father was like living through his work because he was a very communicative person. So we would have discussions about art, cinema, about spiritual search and it was very exciting for me as a kid,” the filmmaker said at the festival, which also screened his film ‘Andrey Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer’ and ‘Nostalgia’ on Friday.

The other titles screened on day two included ‘Sabar Bonda’, ‘Young Mothers’, ‘Dying’, and ‘Aajoor’ — which saw 25 students from Government College of Teacher Education, Dharamshala in attendance at the Picture Time inflatable theatre — and a special screening of the Malayalam film ‘Victoria’, which was showcased again owing to massive demand.