Ray of Darkness

The treatment combines reality and fiction as Joshi is guided by a shadowy figure, which is nothing but his own dreams playing out into reality, to guide him in search of his daughter. “I did not want a simplistic treatment to this story. I have tried to work out what happens in the father’s mind. He deviates from reality and tries to create his own form of justice through his dreams and envisions this shadowy character. Those dreams blur the boundaries between reality and fiction,” says Sen-Gupta, who grew up in the Shivaji Park area of Mumbai before leaving on a scholarship to Paris in 1993, to pursue a four-year film degree from La Femis Institute. His first feature film, Hava Aney Dey premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004.

Sunrise was made with help from the National Film Development Council (NFDC), and two French co-producers. Initially, when he wrote the script in 2008, Sen-Gupta had intended to make the film in bambaiya Hindi. “But NFDC wanted to finance a regional film that year, so Marathi was the next best option. The actors had to learn Marathi with a language coach,” says Sen-Gupta, who shot for 38 nights in the suburbs of Mumbai and film studios.

The title of the film derives from the fact that Sen-Gupta shot only at night to reflect the gloom of the characters and “it is like the characters seek sunrise in their lives,” says Sen-Gupta.