Cannes 2023: How Marathi short Nehemich, made it to the festival, and what it’s all about

Co-writer and director Prithvijoy Ganguly
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

On a call from the festival arena, Yudhajit says, “Nehemich is a Marathi word which roughly translates to forever, or everytime or for all the remaining time.” Talking about the theme of Nehemich, he explains, “The ‘untouchability‘ we went through during the pandemic is allegorical to the condition of the women of rural Maharashtra who have to go through it during every period cycle.”  

Yudhajit and Prithvijoy are from Kolkata – a city whose films, poetry, literature and dissent have shaped their sensibilities indelibly. In perspective of their cultural identity as Bengalis, Yudhajit elaborates, “India does not mean Bollywood. I wanted to explore the transnational nature of our country which is so diverse and has so many languages that often escapes representation.“ Yudhajit’s short films like Gulnara, Kalsubai, Khoji, Quiro, and the single-shot film Clouds explore different regions of India and its cultural moorings and mythologies. Yudhajit’s filmography is inspired by the works of Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan along with Indian filmmakers like Ritwik Ghatak, and Satyajit Ray, among several others.

Nehemich is an off spring of Yudhajit’s travels in rural Maharshtra where he chanced upon a nomadic community of women who were tethered to the regressive practices but untethered in their dreams, desires and longing.  

Starring Sakshi Dighe, Bhakti Makarand Athawale and Gandharva Gulwelkar, embellishing the film is the music by Israeli composer Oded Tzur and Rachit Pandey’s cinematography.

Shot in Maharashtra’s Satara district, in the very first scene of the film, three men in PPE suits approach the body of a woman who passed away during her menstrual cycle. This scene is rooted in current affairs and harks back to the incident of a girl who passed away in Maharashtra during the lockdown while on her period. Hesitant to burn the body, the men in gloves, light a long branch on fire to set the corpse ablaze.  

In the very first frame when the camera pans into the face of a young girl, she is seen caressing an old wound on her forehead while being isolated in a ramshackle hut along with other women and a worn-out donkey. The women in the film are nameless for, in essence, they are forces of nature. Never are their scenes without the howling of the winds, rages of the fire from the earthen stove or the grieving music of mourning that contrast presence and absence.  

Prithvijoy explains that the concept of time in the film is characterised by a certain ‘timelessness‘, “Time is not truly linear but comes across like a journey like time travel.” 

A still from Nehemich
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The space inhabited by the women is inundated by an air of perturbation. The memory of the lover comes back to the protagonist like a caress or a cut it is hard to tell. The averted gazes of one of the menstruating women, in a dream scape, dressed in a tribal bridal outfit, resembles the silences of wilderness, poetry and prose.  

Yudhajit and Prithvijoy’s next film Kaktarua will be released early next year.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Nehemich premiered at Cannes on May 24, 2023. “This worldwide recognition,” Prithvijoy says, “is a stepping stone to our next film Kaktarua which is in Bengali”.   Kaktarua is about a girl who goes back to her ancestral village to find her mother’s wedding ring. The film is slated to be released between the end of this year or early next year.