2021
JBN Originals
Narrative Short Film
End-to-end Film Production
Moonlight Dreams is an intimate character-study of sisters reconciling and daring to go up against India’s devastating societal misogyny.
It’s been over a year since Krishna left her village home, deep within the wild forests of the Sundarban Delta. The last time Tara saw her elder sister was as they led her away from the red wedding pandal. She watched as Krishna was taken by a man twice her age, a man she had ever met before. The circling in-laws smiled, her own mother snapped photographs with pride, and the guests were too busy stuffing their faces to notice silent tears brimming behind the bride’s eyes. But Tara saw everything. And on this day, a year later-the day of her own wedding-she’s left to wonder: can anything be different?
Tara’s father was an alcoholic, a scrounger and terrifying abuser. When he took his own life three years ago it sent their family into a spiral of debt, and with no assets or social standing to her name, Tara’s mother reacted the only way she thought she could: by arranging the marriages of her three daughters, one by one. Krishna (17), Tara (14) and Tumpa (10), aspiring young girls with dreams and flair were suddenly stripped of their innocence and thrust them into a seemingly inescapable web of patriarchy, subservience and violence.
On the morning of Tara’s wedding, a defiant Krishna returns home early against the wishes of her in-laws. Pregnant yet characteristically fiery, she faces her mother and the women of the family with her buried resentment and sadness. She reunites with her sisters to reconcile tensions after a year apart, resigned to face their bleak futures together. And she comes up against a choice: to remain a victim or, in her own way, seize back control of her life.
The day-long narrative is broken up by flashbacks of the sisters’ childhood in the village. We learn of the poverty and hardship they grew up within; of how nonetheless their aspirations and love for each other burned bright; of how their mother’s affection for her daughters turned bitter under the weight of a man’s abuse and neglect; and of how this small village, with its war of patriarchy and female resilience, is a microcosm for issues reverberating throughout India and the world beyond.
Writer/Director - JIJO
Producer - Subhajit Prasad
Sound - Sukanya Bhawal
Line Producer - Sanglap Barman
Music - Soumik Datta
Grade - Vlad Barin
Editors - Subhajit Prasad & JIJO
DoP - JIJO
Tara: Priyanka Roy
Krishna: Ratna Chakraborty
Mother: Soma Chakraborty
Tumpa: Shreya Moulick
Moonlight Dreams is a glimpse, first and foremost, into two sisters reconciling after life splits them apart. A quiet and intimate tale, it is also embedded within larger issues of social significance-patriarchy, misogyny, child marriage and poverty. By prioritising character detail and emotional nuance, my hope is to lend a fresh, relatable face to these issues while constructing a timely and memorable drama.
Child marriage was outlawed in India in 1929 yet it continues to be an entrenched and prevalent social practice across the country. Recent Supreme Court publications state that West Bengal-where this film is set-has 40% of the country’s child brides and that results of early marriage are profoundly negative-preventing female education and economic independence, increasing risks of human rights violations and maternal mortality.
Child marriage, then, remains a very contemporary problem of international note that deserves to be engaged with in new ways. In a small manner, Moonlight Dreams strives to do exactly that.
The script has been informed by extensive research, NGO interviews and first-hand testimonies and translations.The location is along the India-Bangladesh border, within the remote villages of the Sundarban Delta, a real-life hotbed for patriarchic structures and child marriage.
Actors and extras were cast locally, with several bringing key personal anecdotes and lived-experiences to the table. Striving for this kind of verisimilitude has been essential in my approach to seriously engaging with socio-political reality of child marriage.
Child marriage and Indian patriarchy have been widely discussed, tackled by both news media and NGOs in recent decades. But the aim of this film is not to add to the existing canon of primarily activist, educational or sensationalist stories. Rather, by placing the emotional conflict of authentic characters at the film’s centre, I hope to create a universal but timely short film worth watching for all audiences.
As a director with a background in visual journalism and documentaries, I’ve always been most interested in stories of marginalised communities that quietly challenge the unjust orthodoxies of their world. It has led me to produce character-led multimedia work on the female Peshmerga soldiers of Iraqi Kurdistan, the wives and sisters of gang members in Guatemala City, and most extensively on the epidemic of girl-child trafficking across India. These experiences formed part of the inspiration behind writing Moonlight Dreams-a glimpse into rural resilience and oppression, told through the intimate prism of a family drama.
As a man who has often been interested in women’s issues and struggles (especially in my birth country of India) and whose creative outlook has been heavily influenced by feminists such as Arundhati Roy, Satyajit Ray, Rituparno Ghosh and Indira Jaising, I also feel that there has never been a more necessary time for female-centric stories to be explored and championed. I hope to do so in a way that remains collaborative, well-researched and constructive.
PRESS
>> Review on Nowness
>> Review on Omeleto
>> Interview on Little Black Book
Festivals
Raindance Film Festival 2020
Interfilm Berlin 2020
SEMI-FINALIST Rhode Island International Short Film Festival 2020
New Indie London Film Festival 2020
New York Indian Film Festival 2020
New Generations–Indian Film Festival Frankfurt 2020
SEMI-FINALIST Sunday Shorts Film Festival 2020
Calcutta International Cult Film Festival 2020
Tagore International Film Festival 2020
WINNER Award of Excellence–BestShorts Film Festival 2020
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