There couldn’t have been a more ironic opening shot. The first sequence of An Engineered Dream, which won the best non-feature film at the recently announced 67th National Awards, shows a prominent spiritual guru addressing a gathering of over a lakh students at a huge ground in Kota, Rajasthan. The kids talk of loneliness and stress while the guru stresses studies and success. The large-scale event sponsored by various coaching institutes stands testimony to the aspirations of parents and their ‘engineered dreams’ for their children. The irony isn’t lost on the viewer as Hemant Gaba, the producer and director of the documentary, takes us through the lives of four teenagers, pursuing their dreams of cracking the engineering entrance exam in a city synonymous with coaching centres.
“I wanted to question parents, and the society at large. Is it worth putting our kids through such hardships for our own aspirations?” he asks. The documentary that also won the Jury prize at the prestigious 11th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala puts across some hard-hitting questions: Why should an admission to the Indian Institute of Technology be considered the epitome of success, or, why students have to lead claustrophobic lives cramming lessons in a coaching institute faraway from family instead of finding their own path. “A lot of kids wrote to me saying they could relate to the claustrophobia and loneliness shown in the film,” Gaba says. The film was also nominated for the Golden Kapok Award at the 15th Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival, China.
Gaba, who has directed award-winning short films such as Super Girl, Japan in Nagaland and feature films such as Shuttlecock Boys, X-Past is Present, isn’t your conventional filmmaker. In some ways, this documentary is reflective of Gaba’s personal journey. A Delhi boy, who worked in the software industry for seven years, a chance encounter with noted filmmaker Robert Rodrigues’ book Rebel Without a Crew made him venture into filmmaking. “It was inspiring and I thought to myself that I can try it out too. A year later, while I was working in New York, I started attending various filmmaking workshops,” says the 41-year-old independent filmmaker.
On his return from New York in 2008, with some savings and financial help from family and friends, Gaba set out to make his first film in 2012, Shuttlecock Boys. Critically appreciated, it sank without a trace. “I was over-ambitious. People first make short films, documentaries and then go to feature films. I went the other way round. In retrospect, I should have started slow,” he candidly admits.
Almost all of Gaba’s films have an underlying theme of ‘aspirations’. In Shuttlecock Boys, four middle-class boys are trying to chase dreams of setting up a catering business. In his 2014 short narrative film Super Girl, a 10-year-old girl wants to be a superhero. The film was awarded the Best Live Action Short Film at BAM Kids Film Festival (2016) and was screened at a dozen film festivals, including TIFF Kids IFF, Taiwan International Children’s Film Fest, San Diego Asian Film Festival, to name a few. His documentary, Japan in Nagaland (2015), follows the lives of youth in Nagaland who are vying for a slice of Japan.
It seems his struggle in the industry has taken shape into cinematic narratives where chasing dreams is essential to living. Or is it sheer coincidence? “Most of us end up living in a cocoon especially where we equate success to the amount of money we earn or the recognition we get. There’s little point in making films that don’t question such a worldview,” he says. For Gaba, who is currently pursuing a film producing course from the Busan Asian Film School, filmmaking is a never-ending process of learning… as is life.