For years, artist Arpana Caur shared books by her mother, celebrated Punjabi writer Ajeet Cour, with filmmaker Gurvinder Singh. What began as a personal exchange gradually led to an idea: to bring Ajeet’s stories to the screen. The result is Rehmat, Gurvinder’s latest feature and the only Indian film selected for the Main Competition at the Locarno Film Festival.
Based on three interconnected stories by Ajeet, the film is set in present-day Punjab, where grief, displacement and compassion shape the lives of ordinary people. Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Rehmat brings stories written across several decades into the present, allowing contemporary Punjab to become an integral part of the narrative. “Cour’s stories span several decades, beginning in the post-Partition period,” says Singh. “They explored themes connected to Punjab’s social and political trajectory over the years.” This gave him the freedom to choose the stories he wanted to adapt. “What could connect them thematically, structurally and as a narrative was the key consideration in what I eventually chose,” he says.
Hailing from a Punjabi Sikh family uprooted by Partition, Singh sees Rehmat as a continuation of his engagement with Punjab’s unresolved histories. “Partition uprooted people of all religions and dented Punjab’s cultural and social landscape forever. Punjabis split across the border cannot mingle even today, though they share a common language, history and customs. It is an immeasurable loss,” he says.
That engagement extends to Singh’s filmmaking language, marked by meticulous shot design, long takes, naturalistic lighting and an attentive approach to sound. He is drawn to both montage and continuous, uninterrupted shots, though the latter offer a particular satisfaction. “Imagining and successfully executing a long take is, for me, the more satisfying act. It is my first instinct, though I don’t feel it is necessary for every scene,” he says.
Sound is equally deliberate. Dialogue, silence and ambient sounds often take the place of a conventional background score. In Rehmat, he has deliberately avoided one, instead using singing and diegetic music as part of the film’s soundscape. Its interwoven structure, he says, “was the natural form for this material.”
Singh’s exploration of Punjab began with documenting folk ballads and oral traditions, before a formative mentorship with filmmaker Mani Kaul. “I made a conscious effort to explore the land, physically and through a camera. Religious fervour and inter-religious tensions, caste exploitation, the schisms within a largely agrarian society. These are some of the themes I have explored across both fiction and documentary,” he says. Beginning with Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan in 2011, which won three National Awards, Gurvinder’s films have travelled to festivals including Cannes, Busan, Rotterdam and New York. With Rehmat, he returns once again to a Punjab shaped by memory and loss, but also by the possibility of compassion.