Nocturnal Burger, Shera, Moonless: Sampling the Shorts at DIFF 2023  

As always, the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) 2023 hosted a roster of dazzling shorts. Even if some of the fest’s features can be a mixed bag, the shorts it programs, ranging from those by returning filmmakers to new entrants, have usually been a cut above, promising a bunch of exciting discoveries.

Perhaps the most well-known of the lot, Reema Maya’s sophomore Sundance-premiered short, Nocturnal Burger, combines moody visuals and fever dream editing in crafting a vividly disconcerting tale that pivots on the events of one night. The bracing, technically polished short intently compresses time even as it evokes a disturbing history that opens up a fleeting bridge between Simi (Millo Sunka) and Minu (Bebo Madiwal), who are separated by class and privilege. Simi, a freelancer working in advertising, has brought the thirteen-year-old into the police station to lodge a complaint against the thirty-year-old Sanu (Somnath Mondal), whom she believes has harassed Minu in a rickshaw which she was passing by incidentally.

The interrogation is led by Constable Shinde (Shrikant Yadav) and a junior female officer, Sarita (Trupti Khamkar). The questions raised, and the insinuations made highlight thinly veiled patriarchal impulses that eschew justice for endorsing “practical” solutions, such as the woman herself moving out of an apartment while the alleged harasser goes unchecked. Even the mother of the girl has aspersions cast on her for letting her out so late at night.

Simi and Minu are from disparate worlds, but it doesn’t impede Simi from reaching out to her. Stylized punctuating fragments suggest Simi has been through child abuse herself. She might not have the vocabulary to speak out then, which she does now with resolve in the face of the male constable’s backhanded allusions to her own transparency and propriety. Minu remains mute to whatever she is asked. How she may have viewed the relationship with Sanu, who happens to be a neighbor, comes crumbling when battered with the range of questions.

Strongly aided by Harshveer Oberoi’s bracing cinematography, Reema Maya favors subtle storytelling that is loaded with hints. The threat of violence and everyday untoward gestures linger with every set of characters, bearing a name or otherwise. A wordless single shot panning onto the faces of trans women at the station arrestingly accommodates marginalized and erased histories of experience. The male constable declaims on the good and bad touch, proudly asserting how animated and easy-going he is around the female officer and how she knows he always has the best intentions in his touchiness.

Sarita, straining to manage her personal and professional life, quietly chips in that she doesn’t. These flashes of disquiet elevate Nocturnal Burger’s gaze to a penetrating one that zooms in on experiences from varied vantage points thrust within a space and wrenches out of them a gnawing commonality that cuts deep.

In  Shera, director Arun Fulara presents a tale about two childhood friends set in a Himalayan village that glints with a spirit of sparkling inquisitiveness. Fulara understands the minds of kids that crackle with curiosity and are constantly hungry to have their budding interests elicited and provoked further. The eagerness to be astonished is exemplified by the two friends, Monu (Sagar Kumar) and Raju (Parth Panday). They prance about in the hills, their quest for adventure and thrill getting tickled by the chatter about a leopard on the prowl.

As they listen to speculation and anecdotes about the leopard about whom almost everyone seems to have a story, fashioned in the style that edges close to direct-address interviews, they are stoked. As Monu’s family prepares to relocate to the city, Raju contrives a plot that can get them a sight of the leopard. There’s a beautifully modest fablelike sense to Shera, perfectly complemented by Rangoli Agarwal’s cinematography and Devraj Bhaumik’s richly evocative sound design, both working in tandem in evoking a streak of awe and anguish.

In Adheep Das’s Moonless, there’s also an animal on the loose: a bull. The events are concentrated over one night. A body has been found in a gutter. The blame falls on the errant bull. Das pumps this dizzyingly brilliant film with discombobulating frenzy, masterfully stitching fragments positioned askew in the journey the bull embarks on. The cast of characters the bull encounters and overhears ranges from colorful to jaded. As a passive bystander, the bull’s affinity for poetry is only further fuelled by this bursting panoply of people, which includes cops, guards, and thieves on the sly.

There is a rousing, rambunctious energy Moonless conjures; it is hectic, disorienting, and a profusely unstoppable blast that refuses to slow down. The film is an enduring, exhilarating snapshot of a city and its underbelly that emerges at night. 

A selection of films, including these shorts, is available at the virtual edition of DIFF 2023, playing till 15 November.