Zero Bridge : A digitally shot movie
I discovered this gem on the first day at MAMI. The Dilavar, a Kashmiri boy in his late teens lives with his Uncle after being abandoned by his adoptive mother. Dilavar does not enjoy staying with his Uncle, who has raised him, but also mistreats him. He wants to run away to his adoptive mother. He collects money secretly for the purpose by doing homework of other boys. Sometimes even steals if he gets a chance. His endeavors introduce him to a young girl, Bani.
It is one of the rare films, which gets underneath the surface in depicting life in Kashmir. The non actors used in the film lend their subtle Kashmiri behavior. Real locations, non-actors, use of natural light help is developing neo-realistic imagery. The film was shot on a very basic digital camcoder Panasonic dvx 100. Yet one can only compliment the cinematic language. The sound design needs to be complemented too. It makes you forget, that you are watching a digitally shot film. Tariq Tapa shows a rare talent of writing, photographing, editing, sound desiging and directing himself. He is certainly the film maker to watch out for!
Tags: Kashmir, MAMI 2009, Panasonic dvx 100, Tariq Tapa, Zero Bridge
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Very Impressive. I dont know why I was being reminded of Majidi’s Baran while watching the trailer. Nice camera work. Laudable that Tapa has scripted, edited, directed, photographed, engineered the sound and produced the film all by himself.
Amazing!!!
Manjeet,
Interesting!
Does Dilavar fall in love with Bani?
Passport belongs to Bani?
Does he return it to her?
Or manipulates her going back to America?
This trailer raises many questions.
Is Tariq Tapa attending MAMI?
If yes, an interview?
and thanks for sharing it!
RK, your guesses are correct except for the US one. I did get to talk to Tariq Tapa briefly in between. He is there with on screen ‘Dilawar’ and co-producer. We possibly could interview him. Lets see.
Cinematography and the shot selection are very good. Plus, Kashmir’s very gray, yet beautiful landscape lends itself effectively as a backdrop to what seems like a bittersweet, melancholic story.
The cinematography is good, but the movie is below average.
Any idea anyone..when this film will be available for us in India…I just hope it gets a theatrical release soon here…
i think the movie is a great effort…
My best wishes to Tariq Tapa and thanks to Manjeet Singh for sharing this. .
For people, who have not seen the film and would like to see it at MAMI, request the festival authorities to screen it again. They are thinking of screening it again.
Great Show Tariq. I also owe DVX 100 and used it in lot of shorts films. But frankly i never thought i would make a feature length film with it. But now i think i will give it a shot. Trailer looked good, my best wishes for film and filmmakers.And DVX 100 is not a basic camera. It is very capable instrument for good storytelling.Tight composition and Deep Focus will give you 16 mm feel. But if you want shallow DOF and 4k beauty, spend “a hell lot of money” and spend years searching for someone who can spend “hell lot of money”. Tariq Tapa and DVX rocks.