A couple of years ago, National Award-winning filmmakers Jasmine Kaur Roy and Avinash Roy visited Punjab to research for a documentary film. The context was the large-scale migration from the state and they wanted to explore the idea of ‘home’. During the visit, they met a young man who vehemently rejected the idea of leaving his village and his generational occupation of farming. “There was a sense of helplessness, yet he sounded hopeful,” recall the filmmakers. That prompted them to develop Room at the Farm (Khooh Waala Ghar), a short film that recently won the Grand Jury Prize at Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA).
Set in rural Punjab, Room at the Farm examines the impact of rampant industrialisation and unsustainable modernisation on Indian farming. The film focuses on newly-wed Nihal (Guru Bamrah), who must pay off mounting debts even as the farmlands around him make way for factories. His young wife, Reet (Vrinda Malhotra), craves his company but he ends up spending time in the little room at the farm, prioritising his crop over his wife. Making a departure from a romanticised gaze at rural Punjab, the film captures its wintry desolation and despair.
The film was shot at Jasmine’s ancestral village, Sarai Khas in Jalandhar. “In fact, the dilapidated room at the farm, along with the farm itself, is all part of my family’s ancestral land. So for me, it was a nostalgic process. We used to visit these farms as kids — when these homes were full with the extended family and cousins all living together. But now, all that’s left are locked homes, almost everyone having moved abroad,” she recalls.
Even though it’s a 23-minute-long film, the pre-production took close to five months. “Before finalising the location, we did an extensive recce across Punjab with our DOP Sachin Gadankush. Then the film’s colour palette and visual language were designed. The shoot was planned over three days, towards the end of December. We chose the dates based on weather data to get the wet, gloomy conditions we wanted,” says Avinash.
To cast for the roles of Nihal and Reet, the filmmakers conducted auditions in Chandigarh and Delhi before zeroing on Guru and Vrinda, who were able to internalise the characters and bring their own interpretations to the screen. Jasmine wanted to make sure that the actors maintained the authenticity of the language and the accent. “Punjabi being my mother tongue, I could not compromise on that,” she says, adding that she wanted the language to be specific to the Doaba region. While Guru had lived in rural Punjab, Vrinda, who came from Delhi, worked on it during workshops.
Jasmine and Avinash are both graduates of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. Avinash was a film editing student, while Jasmine specialised in direction. “He edited our diploma film, Saanjh, which went on to win our first National Award. Soon after FTII, we decided to work independently and formed our own banner, Wanderlust Films. We complement each other in our strengths and weaknesses and function like a well-oiled machinery,” says Jasmine. They received a National Film Award also for Amoli (2018) while a number of their documentaries and shorts have been screened at film festivals across the world. “These were commissioned by international NGOs and UN organisations. They gave us the opportunity to explore varied issues and perspectives, and offered insight into subjects that lie outside the mainstream,” says Jasmine.
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Though the tone and texture of Room at the Farm are “intentionally dark and ominous”, the muffler that Reet knits for Nihal is yellow, the colour of mustard flowers. That reflects how they see the situation as filmmakers. “Small farmers everywhere are struggling to stay afloat. Farming is no longer considered a viable option by many young people, and indiscriminate industrialisation is damaging the environment. Yet, all is not lost. There is always something to hold on to, and hope and love can help us tide over adversity,” they say and hope this is what the audience takes away from the film.
