Indian animation film @ Toronto International Film Festival

The Indian animation industry is abuzz with a new title. The World of Goopi and Bagha, an original animated feature film, will receive a world premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival or TIFF (from September 5-15).

This Hindi children’s film is designed and directed by Mumbai-based Shilpa Ranade, an illustrator of children's books, a short filmmaker and a lecturer at Industrial Design Centre at Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

The World of Goopi and Bagha marks the highest profile international debut at a major global festival for feature length Indian animation. Last year, 3D animated film Delhi Safari, was showcased at France’s Annecy Film Festival and credited as its ‘Official Selection’.

Catch the trailor

Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha) is a part of classic children’s literature in Bengali, written by Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury. They were later adapted into immensely popular Bengali movies by his grandson and critically-acclaimed film director Satyajit Ray.

The story revolves around singer Goopi and dholak-player Bagha, who are banished from their respective kingdoms for causing a disruption with their cacophonous musical ‘talents’. They accidentally meet each other in the forest. While trying to scare off a tiger with their singing and drumming, their dissonant music warms the ears of a group of ghosts who dwell in the forest. Enthralled by their dreadful music, the Ghost King grants them four boon (three boons in the original story):

• They will get whatever food they want, whenever they want, with the clap of hands (like a hi-5);
• Instant clothes with the clap of hands (hi-5);
• With the help of two pairs of magic slippers and a clap of hands (hi-5), they can go anywhere across the world;
• And finally, they will master art of music and everybody will be spellbound and motionless while they sing

Armed with these three boons, Goopi and Bagha arrive in the Kingdom of Shundi. ‘Thanks to their new gifts, Goopi and Bagha are appointed the court musicians, but are quickly caught up in a dispute between the King of Shundi and his long-lost brother. It will be up to them to use their boons (and their brains!) to prevent war between the kingdoms — and win the hands of two beautiful princesses,’ says TIFF Kids programmer Elizabeth Muskala.

She further states, the movie is “a captivating animated adaptation of a cherished children’s classic, this timeless fable is the story of Goopi and Bagha, a pair of musicians gifted with magical powers by the King of Ghosts... The unique vibrancy of Goopi and Bagha's world comes courtesy of Ranade, a veteran children's content creator and professor of animation, who enriches the film's painterly style with a technique involving cloth textures that lends a distinctive look and feel.”

Ranade’s credits include short animations Mani's Dying, The Harvest, The Childhood of Krishna, Naja Goes to School, and The Mouse with Seven Tails.

Other Indian movies to be nominated in this years’ TIFF festival are Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox, Anup Singh’s Punjabi-language drama Qissa, and Yash Raj Films' Shuddh Desi Romance. Other Indian connections include Siddharth, a film by an Indo-Canadian director Richie Mehta and Pan Nalin’s documentary Faith Connections. Then there is The Fifth Estate, a drama-thriller on Julian Assange, part-produced by Anil Ambani's Reliance Entertainment.

Also, the theme for “TIFF's second annual gala fundraiser is ‘celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema’. Indo-Canadian film director Deepa Mehta has chosen clips from 20 Indian films to be screened. There's also Shambhavi Kaul's short, Mount Song, which is one of the five part of the sidebar Waveslengths 4: Elysium. And Indian American child actor Rohan Chand stars in actor Jason Bateman's directorial debut Bad Words, which is set in the world of National Quill Spelling Bee contest,” reported a national magazine.