Sabar Bonda — a Marathi language film that touches upon themes of grief and sexuality — has crossed borders to connect widely with global audiences. Earlier this year, the film — directed by Rohan Kanawade — premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, the only Indian film in competition and the first Marathi language film ever to premiere at the festival. It went on to win the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize Dramatic, and has gathered unanimously positive reviews since.

Released in Indian cinemas on September 19, Sabar Bonda — meaning ‘cactus pears’, a leitmotif in the film — is being backed by actor-producer Rana Daggubati’s Spirit Media, which also put its weight behind Payal Kapadia’s Cannes 2024 winner All We Imagine As Light. t2 caught up for a chat with Rana Daggubati and Rohan Kanawade on the film and beyond.

Rohan, what does getting to release Sabar Bonda in theatres in India, and with Rana Daggubati supporting it, mean to you?

Rohan Kanawade: It is special. They (Rana Daggubati and his company Spirit Media) believed in it and thought that this film needed to go to the audience here. As independent filmmakers, we don’t know if we will ever get a chance to bring our films to the audience. Someone from Rana sir’s team had already seen the film before it went to Sundance and she really liked it. He watched it after that and came on board to support it. The international audiences have really resonated with the film, even though it is so specific in terms of space and culture and depiction, and I hope that Indian audiences will resonate even more.

Rana, what made you want to put your weight behind Sabar Bonda?

Rana Daggubati: We set up Spirit Media to tell stories that were alternative — cinema that is honest and true, which usually does not fall in the standard format of a commercial release; a film that may not shake up the box office but is one everyone is talking about, and one that will stand the test of time.

The first thing about Sabar Bonda that caught my attention was its honesty. I loved the way the film was made, the detailing of the village and of the people. Also, it is such a topical film. Anytime anyone makes a queer story, there is a certain direction it goes in. Sabar Bonda is a film of hope... Rohan has made such a positive film. It starts with death, but it goes on to become such an uplifting story. We asked ourselves: “How do we get this into cinemas and give it the elevation in India that it normally wouldn’t have?” The film speaks for itself... we were just a tool to get it to cinemas.

Rana, did the fact that this is a rare Indian queer film which is set in a rural milieu for the most part also catch your attention?

Rana: Definitely. We are generally used to seeing such stories in an urban setting, involving characters who are socially exposed in a very different manner. In Sabar Bonda, the way the relationship between the mother and son is shown and how she deals with his sexuality is very beautifully done. It added a certain freshness to the film. The way Rohan has crafted scenes and relationships, the way he has used the camera and sound... they all work so beautifully in that milieu.

Rohan, as you said, this is a very specific story set within a specific culture. What do you think it is about Sabar Bonda that has struck a chord with international audiences?

Rohan: The theme of grief. Everyone has lost someone precious in their lives, everyone knows what grief feels like. Also, almost everyone has fallen in love, it is a universal emotion, no matter where you are on the globe.

Also, though Sabar Bonda is about a specific community, audiences outside the country have come up to tell me how much they identify with certain rituals shown in the film. Of course, they are different, but maybe they evoke the same kind of emotions.

Rana, is there a specific way forward for Spirit Media over the next few years?

Rana: We have taken a path that is not usually taken by production houses. Our motto is ‘creator first’. The kind of films we support, and aim to support in the future, are different and they need a different kind of support and voice to back them.

Over the next couple of years, we will try and make a fully functional ecosystem for the kind of film that Sabar Bonda is. It doesn’t matter which part of the country it comes from. We had already been doing it for the relatively smaller Telugu films all these years. That helped push us out of our comfort zone and we said: “Let’s now figure out how to do it in the rest of the country, because the same problem arises everywhere, right?”

The beauty about this kind of cinema is that it is language agnostic. I am a Telugu guy who has grown up in Hyderabad. Through Sabar Bonda, I got to see what a village in Maharashtra looks like. Despite being from the same country, we all have different cultures and customs and that is what makes us uniquely Indian. Over the next few years, we want to consistently tell stories and promote storytellers who have a voice that is very specific.

This kind of cinema ages very beautifully. Cinema that becomes big at the box office, more often than not, is only relevant for that moment, that period of time. But if you watch Sabar Bonda after five years, it will have the same impact on you as the first screening did.

How much has the pan-India route taken by big-budget films, specially from south India, made it viable for regional indie films to be taken to different parts of the country?

Rana: It has, for sure. Even a decade ago, before the first Bahubali (2015) film came out, it was very hard for me to convince people from Hyderabad to release a Telugu film in Mumbai and vice versa. The understanding of the market was low, the penetration of the Internet wasn’t what it is now and hence the availability of information was lesser. India is unlike the West or any part of the world where cinema usually happens in one city and everyone has shared resources. Here, we have multiple industries, both large and small ones. The smaller ones largely operate within their own ecosystem and seldom do they come into any other space.

But that, as you said, is changing now. Whether commercial cinema did it, whether it is television that used dubbed content and did it, whether it is the OTTs that gave us the flexibility of watching cinema from different places with subtitles... I think it is the combination of all of that that led to this growth.
Rohan: In the pandemic, the audience discovered that there is so much cinema — and different kinds of cinema — to watch from all over the country and beyond. The lensman for Sabar Bonda was from Hyderabad and even though he didn’t understand Marathi at all while we were shooting the film, he could feel and understand the emotions very strongly. At that time, he even said that we should dub this film in different languages because its emotions would resonate with a very large audience. The idea is to create cinema with heart... it will definitely find its audience.

Rana, you have spoken about the transformative power of cinema. You hail from a film family spanning generations in the business. Is there a specific film, growing up, or even later, that had a transformative effect on you?

Rana: Everything that I know about life is through cinema (smiles). That is how I first saw the world — cultures, customs, languages, clothes... cinema has been the largest influence in my life in every aspect.

Depending on the age that you are at, there will be different cinema that impacts you in a different manner. As a kid, when I first watched Mani Ratnam sir’s Iruvar, I thought it was really long and boring (laughs). But when I watched it years later, I thought: “That is the coolest film I have ever seen!” So the kind of impact a film has on someone depends on which part of your life you are in and what you are looking for.

Rohan, what were your early film influences?

Rohan: More than a specific film, it was the images, the camera and the projector that intrigued me. I was very interested in how all of it works together to create cinema. Then I watched Jurassic Park (1993) on the big screen and was completely amazed. I wanted to know how that sound was created, those visuals.... I was really taken in by the moment in which the T-Rex comes out of its paddock. That whole sequence has no background music... it is just the sound of rain and footsteps. The way (director) Steven Spielberg choreographed that whole sequence, the camera movement... it was so exciting. When I started watching world cinema, I discovered Michael Haneke and watched his films over and over again.

Also, I think Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films are visual novels. I was lucky to discover a making video of his film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) and I saw how he worked with his actors and DoP (director of photography). These experiences helped me push my level of storytelling and craft certain unique experiences myself.

Rana, is there a filmmaker in you?

Rana: There is a film in me, but I am not sure in what capacity. I started my career doing visual effects, then became a producer and then an actor, and now I am a distributor and exhibitor in some ways. In this crazy world of movies, as long as I am here, I will keep doing something or the other. I enjoy every single part of it... there is none above the other.