For a filmmaker with a wacky sense of humour, reflected in his social media posts, Shillong-based Pradip Kurbah’s The Elysian Field (Khasi title Ha Lyngkha Bneng) is a singularly sublime rumination on life through the medium of death and on relationships, most so, a sense of community, by dwelling on individual seclusion. The philosophical core is also richly suffused with a gentle humour.
About the last six residents—Ms Helen, Complete, Maia, Friday, Promise and Livingstone—of a remote village in Meghalaya, the film captures their lives through meditative visuals, shot in each of the four seasons. The vast expanse of landscape is evocative of their isolation. Little profundities are strewn all over the dialogue—about how all good things seem to end too soon, how every exit is an entrance to something new, about looking for happiness not in what you have lost but what you still have. The Elysian Field is a film to be experienced and felt than explained.
Kurbah’s debut feature Ri: Homeland of Uncertainty (2013), dealt with militancy in Meghalaya; Onataah: Of the Earth (2016) was about a young woman coming to terms with rape and starting life afresh and Market (2019) focused on everyday life of people in Shillong’s bustling Iewduh market. His fourth feature, The Elysian Field, is quite simply the most original and outstanding Indian film I have seen so far in 2025. It had its world premiere at the 47th Moscow International Film Festival where it won three major awards last week—Best Film, Best Director and the NETPAC award for Best Film. Excerpts from a conversation with Kurbah soon after his return from the festival.
You’ve spoken about how the film took a while to make…
I've been with this film for too long. Since 2020, in the aftermath of COVID. In between I also lost my dad. So things were not going right. It was a difficult film to crack. Funders were not willing to come on board. They didn't understand the whole idea about shooting in every season because if you missed one season, you’d have to wait for a whole year. And I had to. What I shot in winter, for the climax, didn't work so I had to wait for another year to reshoot it. The film really took a lot from me. I couldn't focus on anything else while making it.
Is The Elysian Field your third feature film?
It’s the fourth. My first feature film, which many people have not been able to see, was called Homeland. I don't have access to that film because we had some problem with the producers. After we won the National Award, they didn't let me send the film to any festival. I know people want to watch it, but I'm helpless, I cannot do anything about it. It speaks about militancy in Meghalaya at that time. The idea of freedom, what it actually means.
All your films seem radically different yet very similar …
They are human stories, about guilt, redemption, what you have done and what you haven't. They’re about families.
How did The Elysian Field come to you?
It’s a film in which I'm talking about the specific region from where I come but looking at the world at large. I feel that we are slowly losing the sense of community. It's happening very quietly, one house at a time, one family at a time. I wanted to bring that out in the film. It’s about the six people left in the village and asks what it means to still belong. It is about the importance of community, when almost everything around us has changed or disappeared. It’s about the reality of urban migration. People are leaving for better opportunities. At the same time we are losing out on something very precious—a way of living where people actually know each other, are dependent on each other. In cities nowadays no one has time for anyone. They are mostly in their own worlds.
What was the idea behind setting it up in the year 2047?
It’s the year when India will be celebrating its 100 years of independence. I wanted to start a conversation. Would it be possible in 2047 to see a rural migration instead of urban? When people from the cities start moving back to the places where they come from, reconnect with their roots. In that sense it was about proving what I show in the film wrong. It's a kind of challenge that I am throwing through the film.
When did you write and shoot it?
We had the idea while filming Market. I kept discussing and developing it with my co-writer Paulamii Dutta. We pitched it at Asian Project Market (APM), Busan. I couldn't bring any co-producer on board. So when the entire team came together, we decided to produce it on our own. We focused on 5-6 days of shoot for each season. We also had to improvise along the way. Like a goat we had in the film disappeared after summer. Wild dogs took it away. So I changed the script and had the character look out for the goat through the film. I created the sense of hope that maybe one day he'll find the goat again. I felt like everything just fell into place. There was some kind of a very magical thing happening while the shoot was on. What you felt might not work would suddenly work. We started filming from 2022 and shot for a total 23 days spread over all the four seasons.
Where did you shoot it?
There's a place called Sohra Division in Cherrapunjee district. We shot in several small places there. What you see in the film is not one place, but a mix of multiple places. I made them look as one.
The element of death in the film. Did it have anything to do with the pandemic?
There was a sudden change after COVID, like I started feeling scared. After I lost my dad, I started looking at my family and kids and began wondering what if I'm not there? Also things like what happens when kids grow up and leave us to fight our own battles. One of the characters, Livingstone, is the one whose kids have left him, but he never leaves his own mother. He has the fear like mine. What if I die before my mother? He wants her to die before him.
The visual texture of the film stands out. What went in imagining it?
When we were discussing the visual treatment, I was very scared and sceptical about my approach. So, I made a short film along the same line called Path. I started showing it to the people, and sending to the festivals. I got confidence when I realised that Path was working. The approach of not having too many cuts in the film was to not lose that feeling of isolation in that particular space. Perhaps that’s why many viewers in Moscow told me that they felt they were in the village, just sitting somewhere in the corner and watching the lives of six people.
Music is an important element as well, the use of the choir and carols for instance…
The choir was very much a part of the story when we were writing it. I had come across the news of a choir group that met with an accident and how all the members died in it. So I thought of bringing it as a metaphor. Like how people say that before you die, you see someone as an angel. The choir represents that angel in the film.
I start the film with a Latin song, not a Khasi or an English number. There was no specific reason behind it, I just wanted it should be in a different language altogether. There is this belief in Christmas spirit, how people celebrate it in Shillong, that feel good factor. I feel that after the pandemic, it has completely gone. It is not like it used to be. So you see the guys roaming around those houses where people used to live but no one is there in them now. I just wanted to bring that spirit and sense of belonging.
The relations between the last six people standing are not the very best. But despite the problems they carry on…
There are struggles and silence. The relationship between Maia and Friday, for instance. Throughout the film this couple doesn’t talk. It must be such a big punishment for Friday. You're staying in the same house. You're facing that person. She never throws you out of the house but doesn’t talk. I kept that sense of loss. We talk about unspoken love, about loneliness, but also being loyal to your better half, or your mother, or whatever relation it is. Sometimes silence plays a very important role in such things.
What went in the process of picking up your actors?
Albert Mawrie who plays Livingstone had acted earlier in my Market. He otherwise runs his own business. Merlvin Mukhim who is Promise acted in my Onataah. He is a PRO. Jeetesh Sharma, who is Friday, is actually a tourist cab driver. Baia Marbaniang who plays Maia, is a freelance photographer. Helena Duiia who acted as Miss Helen is a retired teacher. Richard Kharpuri who plays Complete was in Market.
What is the plan ahead for the film?
We would want it to travel to other festivals. I would love to get the film screened in as many places as possible. I want the film to be seen by people.