[ Indu Chukhu ]
Mumbai based filmmaker Bhargav Saikia, originally from Biswanath Chariali in Assam,is going to release his first directorial feature film,Bokshi, in late 2025. The film’s script was under development since 2019, and the film was shot in 2021 and 2022, during the pandemic.
Bokshi will have its world premiere at the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam (the Netherlands) between 30 January and 9 February, 2025. The film has also been selected in the ‘Harbour’ section, which is named after Rotterdam’s port city and focuses on a wide range of contemporary cinema from across the world.
Bokshi comes from a Nepali word meaning ‘witch’. The film is a story of a troubled teenager called Anahita, played by Prasanna Bisht.
Bisht is a relative newcomer in Bollywood. She was earlier seen in the film Farrey, produced by Salman Khan Productions, and Dedh Bigha Zameen, starring Pratik Gandhi. Bokshi is her first film as a lead actor.
The film is a folk-horror fantasy, shot in the deep forests of Sikkim.
Bokshi also stars Mansi Multani as one of the lead actors. Multani is known for her roles in the Anushka Sharma-starrer Pari and Mira Nair’s Netflix web series A Suitable Boy.
“While the film portrays the dark internal journey of Anahita, it essentially highlights themes of women empowerment and ecology using the genres of horror and fantasy. The film attempts to subvert the negative idea of the witch prevalent in the society and presentsit as a symbol of empowerment of the female,” said Bhargav.
Arunachal’s Dagi Ngomdir, a law student at the Delhi University, is debuting in the film.
“Dagi, from Aalo in West Siang district, is playing the character of Rebecca, who acts as one of the tools to represent this new, modern idea of the empowered witch, ie, an empowered woman,” the director said.
Speaking with this reporter, Bhargav informed that he was looking for a northeastern woman to play the role of Rebecca and initially Dagi auditioned for a smaller role, which has a screen time of five minutes. “However, after seeing her performance, I told her that she should audition for the main supporting role,” Bhargav said.
“She has nailed her performance, and with the support of the casting director, we tested her performance two to three times and later she was confirmed for the bigger role,” he added.
Bhargav expressed excitement over the world premiere. “I am excited about making the world premiere at the prestigious IFFR. The IFFR, which is renowned as a discovery festival and for their edgy programming, is just the ideal place to launch my debut feature. It is an ambitious independent production and an adventurous genre film that took nearly five years to complete. I am grateful to the IFFR for giving us this dream premiere,” he said.
The invented language of the film, presented as the progenitor of all modern languages, has been exclusively created for Bokshi by renowned Dutch linguist Jan van Steenbergen.
The film is written by debutant screenwriter Harsh Vaibhav, and explores the journey of a troubled teen, Anahita, who goes on a high school expedition to a little-known prehistoric site and finds herself tested as a long-forgotten myth unfurls and things turn eerie, forcing her to confront her worst fears.
Bhargav earlier wrote and directed an award-winning fantasy short film, which was an adaptation of Ruskin Bond’s The Black Cat, a fantasy shirt film starring Tom Alter and Shernaz Patel.
