Indian action drama ‘Stolen’ is inspired by injustice and mob lynching

Stolen, director Karan Tejpal’s feature film debut, follows two privileged metropolitans who unwittingly embark on a harrowing adventure as they help a poor young woman search for her kidnapped baby in rural India. This is a poignant thriller about a young boy.

Produced by Gaurav Dhingra’s Jungle Book Studios (Toronto titles Angry Indian Goddess and Faith Connections), the film explores the alarming number of child abductions in India in recent years and the often misguided It is also a commentary on the explosion of kidnappings. There was a strong sense of caution as instant messaging apps became popular, especially in rural areas.

The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, won a special award in the feature competition section of this week’s Zurich Film Festival, and will next be screened at the BFI London Film Festival.

The film revolves around Gautham (Abhishek Banerjee) and Raman (Shubham) who try to help Jhumpa (Mia Meltzer), who is in a desperate situation after her 5-month-old child is kidnapped at a remote train station. )’s brothers.

A 2017 news report about two young men who were wrongly accused of child abduction and brutally lynched in India inspired Tejpal to write this story.

“This is a phenomenon that was happening in India and is still prevalent,” Tejpal said, noting that it was particularly problematic from 2015 to 2020, when the killings became known in the media as “WhatsApp lynchings.” He added that it became.

“There were hundreds of incidents where innocent people of all classes and castes were falsely accused and lynched by huge mobs,” Tejpal explains.

“Personally I’m really an outdoors person, so it was something that was in my heart. I love going hiking in secluded places with my friends. These two boys just went fishing. I had just gone on a trip. It felt real fear in me in a strange way: this kind of injustice can happen, and there is no way out.”

At the same time, Tejpal stressed, “It’s just misinformation and it’s not as simple as this crowd being some kind of crazy zombies.” As we delved deeper into it, on the other hand, we realized that child crimes in India, especially among the marginalized demographics of our country, are huge. You can imagine that 70% of our country is marginalized, and child crime occurs in that demographic. It was rising unbelievably. The number is quite staggering: 50,000 to 60,000 children a year. ”

“In India, when these people have no access to state services and no recourse to the judiciary, they are forced to take matters into their own hands. And that is what is causing this whole mob lynching fever. It’s so interconnected that no one is at fault, no one is a bad person, but there are a lot of innocent people who are wronged.”

“Stolen” was also partly inspired by the story of Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, a spoiled prince who transforms after witnessing his death, Dhingra points out. He added that the character arc of Gautham, the film’s central character, is very reflective of that change and his own growth as a person.

Tejpal developed the story with Dhingra and screenwriter Aghadbun and shot the film earlier this year.

For Tejpal, the collaboration between Dhingra and Jungle Book has brought great benefits. “We had complete creative control, which is really rare, probably all over the world, but even more so in India. Being financed by a very small group of producers makes it very difficult to control. That was one of the biggest things that attracted me to working with Gaurav. He is also a creative I also taught them that they need a lot of control.”

Tejpal has drawn inspiration from classic Indian and international cinema, including the works of filmmakers like Satyajit Ray. “Especially because he made this very small Indian film that became essentially global,” Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan said, “because of his beautiful cinematography.” Iran’s Asghar Farhadi is “in search of intense suspense.”

But on a personal and stylistic level, Tejpal says he feels more at home with the new wave of Korean and Mexican cinema.

“These two moves really got us thinking about how we can do cinema in ways that are original, important and essential, but also exciting and global.”

In tailoring Stolen for a global audience, Tejpal enlisted the help of the film’s Berlin-based executive producer Sol Bondi, who has previously worked with Dhingra. Bondi’s father, director and composer Arpad Bondi, also lent his musical talents to the project, composing the film’s music.

“He brings an international perspective [and] We want to make international films,” Dhingra says of Bondi.

Paris-based Charade is handling Stolen’s international sales, while Jungle Book is overseeing distribution in the Indian subcontinent.

Looking ahead, Tejpal is currently developing two ambitious feature films. That includes a project he describes as “very close to my heart and something I’ve been working on for about 10 years.”

The story, also set in rural India, focuses on young lovers struggling to stay together in “a community where young people are not allowed to love by their own choice.” Murder is the extreme act that the family commits to control love and freedom. Families kill young children to protect their so-called honor. ”

This is the story of Romeo and Juliet that “has troubled young kids today because they don’t want to just lie down and die. They take matters into their own hands.”…this is a romantic thriller. ”

Tejpal is also working on an “atmospheric horror story” set in the early 1900s and based on the exploits of real-life Indian-born British hunter and conservationist Jim Corbett. The film is an adaptation of one of Corbett’s stories, telling the story of a hunter who tracks down a man-eating leopard in a dark jungle. “The film is about conservation and superstition,” Tejpal added, noting that the animal is widely considered to be a demonic beast among locals.