Film Bazaar selects Baghjan, Bailadila, Ek Jagah Apni, Follower, Shivamma for 2021 Work-in-Progress Lab

The National Film Development Corporation’s (NFDC) Film Bazaar has selected the Hindi-language feature Ek Jagah Apni (A Space of Our Own) by Ektara Collective as well as the films Baghjan, Bailadila, Follower and Shivamma for its 2021 Work-in-Progress Lab.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the second year in a row that the film market was held online.

This year’s selection features three first-time filmmakers and showcases six Indian languages — Assamese, Chhattisgarhi, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi and Moran.

The Assamese and Moran-language film Baghjan has been produced and directed by Jaicheng Zxai Dohutia, who previously made the film Haanduk (The Hidden Corner). The Kannada film Shivamma has been produced by Rishab Shetty and directed by Kannada filmmaker Jai Shankar, who has helmed shorts such as the award-winning Lacchavva (2019).

Shailendra Sahu’s Bailadila is a Hindi and Chhattisgarhi-language film while Harshad Nalawade’s Follower has been shot in Marathi, Kannada and Hindi.

The mentors for this edition were producers Philippa Campbell and Olivia Stewart, film critic Derek Malcolm, film festival director and historian Marco Müller, festival curator and editor Marie-Pierre Duhamel, and film editors Jacques Comets and Lizi Gelber.

The Work-in-Progress Lab, which selects a maximum of five films, is available only for fiction features that will be released in a theatre.  The director and editor of the films selected present their rough cuts to the mentors to receive in-depth one-on-one feedback. The international editor assigned to the film also guides them through two sessions in the editing lab.

The Work-in-Progress Lab, founded in 2008, has previously chosen films like PAKA (River of Blood), Pedro, Shankar’s Fairies, Laila Aur Satt Geet (The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs) and Fire In The Mountains, all of whom have been selected by prestigious film festivals around the world.