Latest news with #Kapri
Scroll.in
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
In ‘Pyre', an elderly couple face loneliness, the prospect of death – and their love for each other
If things had gone according to plan, Pyre would have starred Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah as an elderly couple in a remote village in the Uttarakhand mountains. But things didn't go according to plan – until they did. It was the year 2020. Naseeruddin Shah got Covid, which made it difficult for him to shoot in higher altitudes. So Pyre 's writer-director Vinod Kapri decided to cast non-professional performers who were from Uttarakhand itself. He found the people he needed. Pyre went into production in 2022. It has been travelling to several festivals. Everywhere the movie is shown, audiences fall hard for the very old and very charming Padam Singh and Heera Devi. Pyre is throbbing romance at its core, Kapri told Scroll. Kapri's third fiction feature after Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho (2015) and Pihu (2018) revolves around the goat herders Padam and Tulsi. They have been married for over 60 years. Their only son migrated years ago and hasn't been back since. Padam and Tulsi are among the last occupants of one of Uttarakhand's ghost hamlets – villages that have been hollowed out by migration. When Tulsi falls ill, Padam has to summon his faraway neighbours by blowing on a trumpet he keeps specifically for this purpose. The trek to the hospital in the plains takes hours. The Hindi-Kumaoni film movingly explores the couple's isolation, poor health and the prospect of death. What is the point of living, they keep asking each other. Although Padam and Tulsi quarrel constantly and are fond of gallows humour, their mutual adoration is unmistakeable. 'The film is connecting with diverse audiences because of the couple's loneliness, their bonding, the love and even the hate that is between them,' Kapri noted. 'The story has a universal appeal.' Kapri based Pyre on the hardships faced by the people of Kumaon, to which he belongs. The story is directly inspired by an elderly couple he met during a trek in Uttarakhand. 'I saw them grazing some 30-40 goats – that visual fascinated me,' Kapri recalled. When he asked them how they were faring, they told him that their children had gone away. Whenever the woman fell ill, they had trouble arranging for medical help. The old man told Kapri that each time he received help, he gave away a goat. What happens when you run out of goats, Kapri asked. Came the reply: we will be gone before that happens. 'That thing remained with me, and I thought I should tell their story,' Kapri said. He started writing a script for a fiction film. He wanted to cast the same couple to ensure authenticity, and he even shot a few scenes with them, but it didn't work out. After the idea of working with Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah fell through, and Kapri couldn't find the replacements he wanted, the project was put on ice. Kapri directed the documentary 1232 KMs (2021), in which he followed a group of labourers cycling all the way from Ghaziabad to their homes in Bihar during the Covid lockdown. Previously a television journalist, Kapri's first documentary was the National Film Award-winning Can't Take This Shit Anymore (2014), about sanitation in villages. Sometime in 2022, Kapri met an uncle Padam Singh at a family gathering. The former Army havildar, who was in high spirits, challenged Kapri to try him out as an actor. Kapri asked his uncle to act out a scene – and it worked. 'I sent the video recording to my friends who are theatre and film professionals and they asked, who is this actor,' Kapri said. But Kapri also needed someone to play Tulsi. He returned to the villages in Kumaon. He found a woman who looked the part. Even as he was talking to her, Heera Devi walked by, carrying a pile of wood on her head. When she was told that the film crew was looking for an actor, she said, 'Haa, main hoon na heroine,' Kapri recalled. I can be your heroine. 'I loved that confidence,' Kapri added. 'We asked her to enact a scene, and we realised that we had found our Tulsi.' Kapri's brief to Padam Singh and Heera Devi, who had never faced a camera before, was that they were performing a dramatised version of their lives. In the film, Padam and Tulsi have a sacred relationship with their surroundings and the mountains – which was also the case with the actors. 'People who are especially from the characters' generation consider themselves the children of the mountains,' Kapri said. This reverence partly explains why Padam and Tulsi despite their tribulations cannot bring themselves to move out of their village . The shoot was a challenge on several fronts. Getting untrained actors to play a married couple wasn't easy. Heera Devi, a widow, who was concerned about what her neighbours might think. She was initially uncomfortable playing another man's wife, even though it was for a film. Kapri got Heera Devi's son to persuade her to continue playing the part. The other challenge was logistical. Pyre has been filmed entirely on location in and around Kapri's own village in Kumaon. Cinematographer Manas Bhattacharyya brings out the area's natural beauty as well as the forbidding expanse. The shoot, which took place in the monsoon in 2022, was strenuous. 'Rather than choosing a hotel that was many kilometres away, we decided to stay in my village,' Kapri said. Several people crammed into various houses, living like an extended family. Equipment had to be lugged around for hours. 'There were no toilets, so we built toilets for our crew and handed them to the village later,' the 53-year-old filmmaker said. One of the themes in Pyre is migration. The film's secondary characters prepare to leave the village – and Padam and Tulsi – for work. However, Pyre isn't about the poor job opportunities or underdevelopment in Uttarakhand's hilly regions, Kapri said. 'I didn't want to make a preachy film or spell out the situation,' he said. 'For me, the film is a beautiful love story, like the story about Franz Kafka, the young girl and the doll, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's No One Writes to the Colonel. I wanted to stick to the story of a couple who love each other and hate each other and fight a lot.' The poignant relationship impressed German editor Patricia Rommel, who edited Pyre, Gulzar, who contributed lyrics for a song for free, and Canadian composer Mychael Danna (Life of Pi, Where the Crawdads Sing). Danna was on a sabbatical when Kapri approached him, but was so moved by the film that he agreed to compose the background score for a pittance, Kapri said. Pyre won audience choice awards at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia in 2024 and the Asian Summer Film Festival in Spain earlier this month. Kapri has a few more international showings, including the London Indian Film Festival and the Indian Film Festival Melbourne, before he explores a distribution deal in India. 'Independent films with non-actors are almost impossible to make, but the response has been good,' Kapri said about the self-financed movie. Padam Singh and Heera Devi attended the screenings in Tallinn. They had never been on a plane, let alone travelled abroad before. They didn't even have passports. The characters in Pyre are unable to leave, but the actors who play them have gone places.
The Wire
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Wire
The Quiet Exodus: On Vinod Kapri's 'Pyre'
An old man walks along a craggy mountain path, his back slightly hunched, a small drum in hand. With each tap of the drum he chants, invoking the goddesses. Behind him, an elderly woman follows, wrapped in layers of faded cloth, her steps steady but slow. Mist curls over the stone rooftops of their deserted village as they walk away from it onto a cliff-like rock jutting over the turbulent waters of Kali Taal. This is the opening image of Pyre, Vinod Kapri's stunning film – a world built on silence, ritual and the tender endurance of two people who have refused to leave what the rest of the world is abandoning: the hills of Uttarakhand. From the very first scene, Kapri signals that Pyre will not hurry to tell its story. The pacing of the film is masterful, allowing the viewer to walk among the hills, to experience the mountains in a way that only a director intimate with their rhythms could achieve. I love those hills and have a sense of them more than any other mountain range – not the Aravallis I belong to, nor the Alps I experienced as a child – the Garhwal and Kumaon hills feel familiar like no other, especially as they've been part of my reporting life as well. A still from 'Pyre'. Depictions, by others, of what matters to you – literary or cinematic – often makes you critical. Your natural possessiveness (and sometimes knowledge) push you to notice every real or perceived lapse, every stereotype – something to critique, a way to reclaim what you love from a writer or director. Which is why I'm frankly stunned by how completely this film – and the hills, their people, their life – seem to belong to Kapri. Or perhaps it's the other way around: Kapri belongs to them. He renders their world with such care and fidelity that there's nothing to reclaim, only to recognise. It's not surprising, then, that the film was shot in and around Kapri's father's village, where he grew up. The actors – the lead protagonists who had never faced a camera before – Padam Singh, or Bubu, a retired soldier played by Kapri's uncle and Amma or Tulsi played by Hira Devi, a farmer. Anoop Trivedi, an actor and NSD graduate, worked with these two and in fact, the rest of the cast to produce an authenticity rarely seen. They speak and bicker not as performers, but as people who have lived these lives. This lack of affectation cuts straight to the core of the film's emotional truths. Pyre follows Bubu and Amma, an elderly couple living in quiet isolation, waiting for their son Hariya, who left years ago for the city. Their days pass in everyday routines – tending to the goats, bickering, lighting bidis, fetching wood, trekking down to hospitals, repairing their hut. "He said he would come this year," Amma mutters, more to the wind than to Bubu. Their love plays out in quiet gestures – gentle banter, teasing glances. Each time Amma falls ill, Bubu calls out to a villager, offering a goat in exchange for helping carry her down the mountain paths to a road, the only way to access medical assistance. As the village empties, and their isolation deepens, a question begins to loom – who will be left to help when no one remains? Hariya's return becomes more about holding on to a memory rather than reality. The truths lie in the real-life story of the hills and of people much like Bubu and Amma. Kapri has spoken of how the idea of the film came from a couple he met in Munsyari. The man had a herd of goats – he would give one to anyone willing to help carry his wife down from their home, a steep trek to the main road and on to the hospital. "As long as I have goats my wife will survive," he told Kapri, and that dialogue is verbatim in the film. A still from 'Pyre'. Kapri said it reminded him of Gabriel García Márquez's No One Writes to the Colonel – a very different story, about a colonel waiting in poverty for a pension that never arrives. Despite the distance in geography, language and context, the film and the novel echo each other in spirit: the dignity of agwing, the persistence of hope against all odds, the quiet heroism of enduring. That connection lends the film a universality that reaches beyond its setting. A brief meeting with Hira Devi and Padam Singh reveals how deeply this story is theirs. Hira Devi says she weeps each time she watches the film – it mirrors too closely the grief of those around her. She confessed to fighting with the director, begging for a gentler ending: "At least in cinema, if not in life, I wanted relief." Padam Singh, who has lost his wife and is undergoing cancer treatment, still lives in a village hollowed out by migration. Each thunderstorm eats away not just at homes but at memory, at belonging. One such thunderstorm – a scene of shattering beauty – was captured by cinematographer Manas Bhattacharya. Framed through their blue-painted windows, Bubu and Amma sing old folk songs to pass the night, their voices rising against the sound of wind and rain. By morning, part of the adjacent hut collapses. Without a word, Bubu attempts to repair it. There is no dramatic music, no dialogue – only the quiet act of rebuilding. It is perhaps the most profound expression of love in the film. Kapri's use of sound is as textured and thoughtful as his visual storytelling. The ambient world of the hills – the rustle of wind through pine, the rhythm of goats' hooves, the distant rush of the Kali river – is captured with quiet precision. The music by Oscar-winner Mychael Danna, of Life of Pi fame, and a song penned by Gulzar add to the experience, but it's the use of the folk songs sung by Bubu and Amma that stand out. The music does not draw attention to itself; it deepens the experience. Folk songs – Bubu sings a ballad about the "stars of heaven, moonlit night" – are used sparingly, without exoticising the culture or signalling their "folksiness". Instead, they emerge as part of the world that Bubu and Amma inhabit. A still from 'Pyre'. Kapri has managed to create a love story in the midst of exploring a key issue in Uttarakhand, one that is hard to resolve – the migration away from the hills of its own people. As a Pithoragarhi living and working in Bombay and Delhi, Kapri knows what this entails: A guilt for having left the hills but also an understanding of what endures for people who have stayed behind. The film brought to mind the words of environmentalist and activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt. I last met him in the aftermath of the June 2013 flash floods that devastated the Uttarakhand hills – what is now often referred to as the Kedarnath tragedy. Bhatt, who has spent a lifetime warning against the damage wrought by unchecked development, spoke then of a deeper irony: While development remains the official narrative, the reality is one of steady erosion – the mountains are emptying out, not just by landslides, but by a slow, relentless exodus, compelled by shrinking livelihoods. By situating this predicament, Kapri brings into focus a crisis that few narratives capture, and one that cinema, in its most restrained and empathetic form, is uniquely equipped to reveal. Pyre won the Audience Award at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, along with several other international accolades – for its actors, its director and its deeply affecting story. But awards aside, what this film truly deserves is greater viewing, conversation and love in the country it so intimately belongs to: India. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Indian Express
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Meet the lead actors of Pyre, an ode to the reality of migration, old age and loneliness
As dark clouds hover and block the snow-capped Himalayas, as thunder rumbles, Bubu (Padam Singh) is preparing a pyre. Aama (Hira Devi), his wife, is watching him as he says, 'I'm making this for you.' The moment of desolation and loneliness engulfs the frame as this elderly couple realises they are alone in the mountains. Director Vinod Kapri's film Pyre (2024) is as much a meditation on love and longing as it is about time and memory. As their village in the Uttarakhand mountains empties, with people leaving for better opportunities in the city, they await their son's return. Central to the film is the silence, broken only by the banter of the two, amid an end looming over their heads. The story stems from Kapri's visit to Munsyari in 2017, where he met an elderly couple. 'They had around 40 goats. When I asked the man why he kept so many, he said it was for those who helped him take his wife to the doctor. 'Every time someone lends a hand, I give them a goat. As long as I have goats, she will survive.' I asked him what he would do when he ran out of goats: Bakriyan khatam hone se pehle hum khatam honge (Before the goats are done, we will be gone), the man answered,' says Kapri. A post shared by Vinod Kapri (@vinodkaprii) This dialogue is in the film, which won the Audience Award at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia in November last year and received a special jury mention at the Bengaluru International Film Festival in March. The lead actors, Singh and Devi, were nominated for best actors at the New York Indian Film Festival, held last month. When we meet Devi at her home in Berinag, Pithoragarh, she is whipping up a meal for herself, after spending the morning weeding her small ragi patch on her farm. She lives alone in her hill house with two buffaloes while her four children are away in Dehradun and Haldwani. Her husband passed away from tuberculosis 20 years ago. 'When I have to go to film festivals, I call my mother or daughter so my buffaloes do not go hungry. When I had to go to Estonia last year, all I could think of was how would my buffaloes get fed,' she says. Set against the pine forested hills, with songs written by Gulzar and composed by the Academy Award winner Mychael Danna, the film will do the premiere circuit in Barcelona, London, Stuttgart and Melbourne, after which it will be released in theatres in India. Initially, Kapri had tried getting the Munsyari couple to play their respective roles in the film but he gave up after 10 days. At last, he found talent closer home in his uncle, Singh, who has acted in Ramleelas in his village. At his house, five kms away from Berinag, Singh is currently undergoing chemotherapy. In February last year, he lost his wife, his only family. 'After she died, I lost everything. Now, these film festivals make me happy and hopeful,' says Singh, a former havildar, 'I got married when India was at war with Pakistan and Bangladesh was formed,' he says. 'I stepped out of the country for the first time to Tallinn. The only complaint I had was that I could not get rotis. I missed my home, the hills and the trees,' adds the 78-year-old. It was in Tallinn that he watched the film for the first time. 'It is a reality for many of us; not even one dialogue is fictional. I cried watching it,' he says. Finding Devi was fortuitous for Kapri. In her village, she was popular for her hansi mazak but her son had to convince her to be part of the film. A post shared by Vinod Kapri (@vinodkaprii) Devi recalls that her first brush with films was when she would watch bits of the Mahabharat tele-series in the late '80s. 'We were poor and did not have a TV, so I would go to my neighbour's yard to steal a glance, but they would shut their doors seeing me. After the film (Pyre), I was gifted a TV. Now, I watch whatever comes on it,' she says. Devi would spend sleepless nights reading the script and memorising her lines. Towards the end, she could not bring herself to play Aama. 'There is a dialogue about losing children and I felt I was wronging them by saying it. Also, we cannot wear a nath after the death of our husbands. I felt sad wearing it again. I was also uneasy to act with a man who was not my husband,' she says. Today, Devi is a star in her village. When she goes to the community water tap, children and their mothers smile at her. As Devi looks out of her blue-painted windows, she points toward a distant village: 'That's where Padam Singh lives — it's a ghost village. Every house there is padlocked, just like in the movie.' Aiswarya Raj is a correspondent with The Indian Express who covers South Haryana. An alumna of Asian College of Journalism and the University of Kerala, she started her career at The Indian Express as a sub-editor in the Delhi city team. In her current position, she reports from Gurgaon and covers the neighbouring districts. She likes to tell stories of people and hopes to find moorings in narrative journalism. ... Read More
Hindustan Times
14-05-2025
- Hindustan Times
Filmmaker Vinod Kapri gets threats over ‘Say No to War' post, case filed
Noida: Noida police have registered a case for criminal intimidation against two social media users after filmmaker Vinod Kapri allegedly received multiple death threats on a social media platform over his 'Say No to War' post, police said on Tuesday, adding that suspects are yet to be arrested. The post, which included the hashtag 'SayNoToWar,' was made by Kapri on May 8, was viewed over 2.3 million views by Tuesday evening. A senior police officer from Noida police, requesting anonymity, said, 'Based on a complaint filed by Kapri, a resident of Noida, a case under Section 351(4) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was registered against two social media users — Pravin K. Soni and Arun Yadav — at Sector 49 police station late Monday night. Efforts are underway to arrest them.' 'In my post on May 8, I simply wrote 'Say No to War' on my social media account, X. Following this, some miscreants began trolling and threatening me to mislead the public,' reads the FIR. 'They (the suspects) also circulated my mobile number on social media platforms. Since then, I have received numerous phone calls containing death threats. They also threatened my family and my wife, who is a journalist,' the FIR further stated. On May 9, Kapri tagged the UP Police and Noida Police on social media, urging them to take cognizance of the threats. However, he formally lodged a complaint at the Sector 49 police station on Monday. 'With the help of electronic surveillance, we are tracing the suspects. Further investigation is underway,' said Sector 49 station house officer Anuj Kumar Saini.
Time of India
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Felt like an award: Vinod Kapri on Gulzar writing a song for 'Pyre' without charging fee
(Picture Courtesy: Facebook) Vinod Kapri is elated with the love and recognition that his latest directorial "Pyre" is garnering in the film festival circuit but for the filmmaker, the highest honour came from cinema legend Gulzar , who loved the movie and even wrote a song without charging any fee. Inspired by the true story of an elderly couple Kapri met in 2017 in Uttarakhand's Munsiyari, a village affected by migration, the Hindi-language film focuses on themes of love, resilience, and human spirit against the backdrop of the Himalayas. It features non-professional actors Padam Singh, a retired Indian Army soldier, and Hira Devi, a farmer, both from Berinag Tehsil in Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district. Kapri had earlier collaborated with Gulzar for his 2021 documentary "1232 KMS", which featured two songs by the eminent poet-director. And he decided to approach the cinema veteran once again for "Pyre", which won the Audience Award at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in November last year. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo Kapri said when he told Gulzar about the film, the lyricist was curious about his two lead protagonists. "He was like, 'What are you saying? You have made a film with non-actors.' He asked how they performed in the movie and wanted to see it. So I sent him the first cut. After 48 hours, I was in Goa with my family and friends. He called me early in the morning and I missed it," Kapri told PTI in an interview. Kapri called him back and realised that Gulzar really liked the film. "Coming from Gulzar sahab, it was like an award itself," the filmmaker said, adding that lyricist agreed to write the song for the movie. The filmmaker later met Gulzar in Bombay and by then, the veteran had written the track. "He narrated the song that he had written. He also told me that if I don't like the song, then I should let him know. But I liked it. After the meeting, I realised that I didn't discuss commercial (payment) with him. "I rang up his manager and told him everything. I told him that though we have less budget, we will manage something. Within 10 minutes, I got a call from Gulzar sahab, saying, "Vinod, you have become so big that you will give me money now?' He said, 'You have made such a good film. How can I take money for this?'" he said, recalling his conversation with Gulzar. "Pyre" was recently screened at the Bengaluru Film Festival . Besides Gulzar, the film's crew also includes German editor Patricia Rommel and Mychael Danna, the Oscar-winning music composer of Ang Lee's "Life of Pi". Kapri said he decided to approach Rommel as he loved her work on "The Lives of Others", the 2006 German drama which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. "When I approached her, she said she needs to read the story first and then she asked for the rushes (unedited footage)," he recounted. After watching the rushes, Kapri said Rommel was enamoured by the performance of both Singh and Devi. "She told me, 'Vinod, I'm in love with this couple, and I would like to meet them. When can I meet them?' And I realised that Patricia is on board. I asked her, 'Will you do this film?' She said, 'Of course, I'm doing this film... I'm doing this film for this lovely couple.'" When the movie premiered in Tallinn, Rommel flew down from Berlin, just to meet the old couple. "She spent three days with them and gave all her love to them... And in fact, she also bought some nice gifts for them. So it was really heartwarming," he said. For the background score, Kapri had Danna in mind but then he found that the music composer was on a six month sabbatical. "He asked me to approach him six months later. I wrote to him, saying, 'I completely respect that you have taken a sabbatical but I would like you to watch some rushes of the film... maybe you will change your mind.' And that really worked," Kapri said. "After watching the first cut, he said, 'This is unbelievable stuff, the way these people have acted and I am doing this film." Stay updated with the latest Best Hindi Movies , Best Tamil Movies , Best Telugu Movies , Best english Movies , Best Malayalam Movies
