Sunrise

Director: Partho Sen-Gupta
India, France | Marathi
2014 | 85min | Colour
Subtitles: English

Friday, Oct 31
TIPA, 8:00 PM

In the sprawling megalopolis of Mumbai, Inspector Joshi searches desperately for his six-year-old daughter, Aruna, who one day, ten years ago, had not come home after school. By day, Joshi is a cog in the wheel of the apathetic police force; by night, he roams the backstreet dancing bars endlessly searching for his daughter. A shadowy figure appears to be everywhere Joshi goes but, despite numerous attempts to catch him, it remains elusive. Late at night, Joshi returns to his cramped apartment to face his broken wife. Naina, a 6-year-old girl, is brought by traffickers to a brothel and is entrusted to Komal, a teenage prostitute. The girl watches as the other children are sent out to ‘clients’. Joshi and the other cops lead a raid on the brothel, but the pimps hide the children in a false ceiling. Joshi feels the presence of the shadowy figure. Babu, a 16-year-old boy, is brought to Joshi badly beaten. Joshi cannot get any answers out of him. He decides to investigate Babu’s family but nothing is turned up. Yet he feels the presence of the shadowy figure. Before the sunrise, Joshi must catch the elusive figure that destroys the lives of children.

 Partho Sen-Gupta

Partho Sen-Gupta was born in Mumbai, India. He started his career as an apprentice in the art department in the studios of Bollywood at the age of 17. He then set up his own design studio and worked on numerous advertising films and feature films, designing sets and specializing in SFX. He was Art director on Alain Corneau’s Nocturne Indien, shot in India in 1989. In 1993, he was awarded a scholarship to study film direction at the FEMIS, the French film institute in Paris. He made four short films that took him to different European film festivals at which he won several awards.

After graduation, he made his first feature film, ‘Hava Aney Dey’ – Let the wind Blow’ (93 mins, Hindi) which premiered at the 2004 Berlin International film festival. It was also selected by many other major international film festivals and won awards. It was screened at the MoMa, NYC for the Global Film Initiative’s Global Lens 2008 series. His new feature film Sunrise (Arunoday), an Indo-French coproduction with Adil Hussain and Tannishtha Chatterjee, was selected at the 19th Busan International film festival in the New Currents Competition section.

Credits

Director: Partho Sen-Gupta
Producer: Rakesh Mehra ,Nina Lath Gupta ,Marc Irmer ,Partho Sen-Gupta
Screenwriter: Partho Sen-Gupta
Cinematographer: Jean-Marc Ferriere
Editor: Annick Raoul
Music: Eryck Abecassis
Production Company: Independent Movies, Dolce Vita Films
Cast: Adil Hussain, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Ashalata Wabgaonkar, Gulnaz Ansari, Esha Amlani

Festival Appearances & Awards

Busan International Film Festival, 2014
Mumbai Film Festival, 2014