Masaan
Director: Neeraj Ghaywan
India | English, Hindi, Kashika
2014 | 109min | Colour
Subtitles: English
Sunday, Nov 8 TIPA, 8:30 PM
Four lives intersect along the Ganges: a low caste boy hopelessly in love, a daughter ridden with the guilt of a sexual encounter ending in a tragedy, a hapless father with fading morality, and a spirited child yearning for a family. In a place that promises the soul liberation from its karmic cycle, the characters ironically long to escape the moral constructs of their small-town. Dealing with issues of class, caste, and sexuality, the characters’ seemingly disconnected problems eventually become the link that binds them together. Through their stories, the decaying roots of the holy city of Varanasi are subtly revealed, as the sound of burning pyres on the river banks reminds us of the fleeting quality of life itself.
Neeraj Ghaywan
Neeraj Ghaywan, an engineer and an MBA, moved on from his corporate career in 2010 to pursue filmmaking. He has assisted renowned filmmaker Anurag Kashyap on the two-part film, Gangs of Wasseypur and was the second unit director for Ugly. He has also made two short films The Epiphany and Shor, the winner of the Grand Jury Awards at three international film festivals in New York, LA and London. Neeraj was awarded the Mahindra Sundance Global Filmmaker award and the script of Masaan, written by Varun Grover, was part of the Sundance Screenwriter’s lab 2014.
Credits
Director: Neeraj Ghaywan
Producers: Manish Mundra, Mélita Toscan du Plantier, Marie-Jeanne Pascal, Guneet Monga, Shaan Vyas, Vikas Bahl, Vikramaditya Motwane, Anurag Kashyap
Cinematographer: Avinash Arun
Screenwriter: Varun Grover
Editor: Nitin Baid
Sound: Sanjay Maurya, Allwin Rego, Gilles Benardeau
Music: Bruno Coulais, Indian Ocean
Production Companies: Phantom Films, Macassar Productions, Sikhya Entertainment Production, Drishyam Films
Festival Appearances & Awards
Cannes Film Festival 2015 – FIPRESCI Award for Best Feature Film of Un Certain Regard, Promising Future Prize
Busan International Film Festival 2015
