International Premiere
Shishir Jha enters the scene with this richly layered cultural snapshot, thoughtfully excerpting an intimate tragedy to contextualize the wider environmental disaster enveloping the Santhal tribe, an ethnic group native to India and Bangladesh, whose lives are at risk by their proximity to uranium mining.
Centering on the story of a young couple trying to come to terms with the loss of their daughter, Tortoise Under the Earth captures a heartbreaking sense of yearning, gradually expanding on the narrative scope to include regional specificities. Jha adopts a hybrid docu-fiction format to accentuate the layers of subtext at play, weaving ethnological and anthropological elements, and elegantly casting a macro lens over a heartfelt micro storyline. The gentle, observational gaze results in mesmerizing imagery, glimpsing tribal traditions and folklore, and a spiritually rich way of life in harmony with nature. Jha impresses with fresh, intuitive filmmaking, drawing from an immersive process that results in a sense of immediacy and powerful humanist messaging.
Presented by
Jagarnath Baskey, Mugli Baskey
India
2022
In Santhali with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Road to Patagonia
A travelogue, an eco doc, an adventure movie and a love story, The Road to Patagonia chronicles filmmaker and ecologist Mayy Hannon's 50,000 km expedition from Alaska to the tip of Chile (via Vancouver Island), on motorbike, horse, and surfboard.
Sex
Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.
Love
This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).
3 Faces
Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...
Dreams
The third installment in the Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy is another rich, absorbing tale. 17-year-old Johanne writes a confessional about her flirtation with a (female) teacher. But the writing is too good to stay private...
Credits
Producer
Vinay Mishra, Pallavi Rohatgi, Preety Ali, Raghavan Bharadwaj, Shishir Jha, Mritunjay Jha
Screenwriter
Shishir Jha
Cinematography
Shishir Jha
Editor
Shishir Jha
Original Music
Durga Prasad Murmu
Director
Shishir Jha
Shishir Jha is a Mumbai-based filmmaker born in 1988 in Bihar, India. He graduated from the National Institute of Design with a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Video Communication Design. He then did a Master’s in Film Direction at the Sarajevo Film Academy, and has received a Filmmaking diploma from the late Abbas Kiarostami’s workshop at Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba. He is one of the directors of Shuruaat Ka Interval (2014), an anthology film released by PVR Director’s Rare.