Director Nemil Shah, who collaborated with his classmates from a Mumbai-based film institute to make the National Award-winning short fiction movie "Dhal Bhat", says the team wanted to understand the intricacies of filmmaking through the project.

Shah collaborated with classmates Aditi Bohra, Vinayak Chhabra, Senain Sawant, Dharamraj Joshi, Mitali Solanki and Rishab Joshi to make “Dal Bhat”, about a 10-year-old boy who is excited to take a dip in the newly filled lake after a long drought. Despite being denied permission by his father, he goes for a swim, which leads to a discovery about himself.

"Filmmaking is a very practical subject. So, it becomes difficult for someone to teach you in a traditional academic sense. So we had to make a film to understand how films are made,” says Shah.

Sawant, who assisted Shah, says they knew the final product could be submitted as a graduate project, but never in their wildest dreams did they think their “passion project” would lead to a National Award win.

"It just so happened that the completion of the film and our graduation submission timelines kind of matched. Later, we decided to submit the film to the award selection committee,” adds Sawant.

The story idea was Shah’s, says Chhabra, first assistant director.

Shah says he was always fascinated with the landscapes of Saurashtra as well as the stories that were narrated by his grandfather.

"I was born there, and a lot of my childhood was spent there. My grandfather used to tell us stories about his childhood and how when they were 10- to 12-year-old kids, they used to walk almost 10km just to swim because there was nothing else that they could do,” says Shah.

Shah says the idea germinated from these images planted in his head.

“We wanted to do something with water in this stark landscape. That was the starting point of the story. And then we explored the area. We were just looking around in Saurashtra and Kutch and we found this small village where only transgender people used to live, and it was very fascinating. We lived with them for a couple of days to understand their lives. Everything then eventually came together, and we wrote the film,” adds Shah.

The group decided on a fictional story over the documentary format because they thought if the story that explores the social taboos is told from a child’s perspective, the impact would be more, says Sawant.

“What I remember from our first conversation with Nemil was that he wanted to bring an element of innocence into the story. Mukti, our central character, is a very young child who doesn't really understand what's happening with him. He's never been educated about his body. He just wants to go and swim in the lake,” says Sawant.

And as the boy grapples to understand why his father refuses to let him swim in the lake, the film subtly explores the consequences of being from a LGBTQ community in a very small village.

That they won the national award for their maiden effort is something the friends cannot get over yet, says Chhabra.

“There are very few people who are lucky enough to achieve this and at such a young age and so, it’s really great. But I think it also adds a certain sense of pressure – everything you now make might be compared to this. Nevertheless, it’s just a really, really nice feeling to have won it,” adds Chhabra.

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