A pair of new distributors have announced their arrival on the theatrical scene this morning with the bold acquisition of two contemporary Indian independent films fresh off successful festival runs. Deaf Crocodile, a partnership of former Cinelicious Pics/Arbelos execs Dennis Bartok & Craig Rogers, and Gratitude Films from festival programming veteran (Jio MAMI Mumbai) Anu Rangachar have come together to present The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs (Laila Aur Saat Geet) and The Village House (Gamak Ghar) to US audiences this spring. Deaf Crocodile will also be releasing a brand new 4K restoration of John Carpenter's siege classic, Assault on Precinct 13 exclusively to theaters in 2022 following a festival premiere.
It is rare that Indian indepedents make it to American cinema screens, which makes this initial foray for both companies a bit of a bold gambit, but one we are definitely excited about. Deaf Crocodile's team of Bartok & Rogers were also behind the US releases of Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur and psychedlic animated oddity The Belladonna of Sadness with Cinelicious Pics as well as Bela Tarr's Satantango with Arbelos among many others, so their affinity for risk-taking is well-documented.
Gratitude's Rangachar is a long time festival programmer who recently jumped behind the scenes with her executive producer role in Arun Karthik's festival hit, Nasir. Her keen eye for up and coming talent in India has helped a number of smaller production see the light of day through her work with the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival over the years. These two films will be her first foray into distribution as a partner with Deaf Crocodile after having built a solid relationship with the primaries on getting Wasseypur to US cinema screens in 2015.
Have a look at the details of these exciting new films:
Date: February 24, 2021
New Distribution Companies DEAF CROCODILE and GRATITUDE FILMS
Bring New & World Cinema and Select Restorations To Audiences Nationwide.
First Releases Are Acclaimed Indian Films THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE SEVEN SONGS
and THE VILLAGE HOUSE, plus 4K restoration of John Carpenter’s
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13.
DEAF CROCODILE and GRATITUDE FILMS are two newly launched Distribution companies bringing new and world cinema and select restorations to North American audiences via theatrical release, VOD, Blu-Ray & DVD and television. The companies were started by three art-house veterans and friends: film restoration expert Craig Rogers and distributor and exhibitor Dennis Bartok for Deaf Crocodile; and former longtime Mumbai Film Festival programmer Anu Rangachar for Gratitude Films. Together, the two companies are forming a unique partnership to bring vibrant and challenging independent cinema from across India to North American audiences.
Deaf Crocodile is a boutique Distribution + Restoration + Post-Production company focused on New, Independent, Lost/Unseen and World Cinema with a special interest in World Animation, LGBTQ films, Cult Horror + Fantasy, and the work of neglected and underrepresented Filmmakers from across the spectrum. Rogers is overseeing Restoration + Post-Production services and Bartok is handling Acquisition and Distribution. The company is located in Los Angeles.
Gratitude Films Inc. is a boutique Distribution company founded by Anu Rangachar in the USA with the aim of acquiring and distributing art-house World Cinema, with a special focus on Asian and Indian films. The company is located in Mumbai and Los Angeles.
“We all share a mutual passion for bringing emerging new voices from around the globe to U.S. audiences,” says Dennis Bartok. “A great part of the fun in distribution, exhibition and programming is finding those rare and beautiful movies like THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE SEVEN SONGS and THE VILLAGE HOUSE. These are just the kind of poetic, engaging and deeply human films we want to introduce to art-house audiences. ”
“I’m very excited to be continuing to do what I love – that is discovering hidden, lost or forgotten films and bringing them to a new audience,” says Craig Rogers. “I believe moviegoers will be touched by these films’ beauty and universal themes. Although many art-house theatres are shuttered in the U.S. right now due to COVID-19, we’re fully committed to the theatrical experience and looking forward to releasing these films in the Fall when theatres hopefully re-open and audiences return.”
“I have been having multiple conversations with friends in North America for the past few years as I became aware of the huge gap in the US art-house distribution circuit for Indian independent cinema and I was looking for the right collaborators,” says Anu Rangachar. “I have known Dennis Bartok for a long time now and always marveled at his deep knowledge of Indian Cinema. Both Dennis and Craig are huge cinephiles and that’s reflected in their work. So it was a very natural and organic collaboration that comes out of all of our mutual admiration for the same things we care for in quality Independent cinema.”
The companies will roll out their first co-presentations theatrically and digitally in the Fall of 2021, beginning with director Pushpendra Singh’s stunningly beautiful and mystical feminist drama THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE SEVEN SONGS, set in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir in northwestern India and following an independent young bride named Laila who marries into a tribe of traditional Bakarwal herders (in Gujari and Hindi languages with English subtitles); and THE VILLAGE HOUSE, the astonishing debut feature from 23-year old writer/director Achal Mishra. In the vein of Bergman’s FANNY AND ALEXANDER, THE VILLAGE HOUSE is a lovely, luminous and gentle portrait of a large extended Indian family over several decades as they gather at the matriarch’s rural home. (In Maithili language with English subtitles). Deaf Crocodile and Gratitude will handle North American distribution for THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE SEVEN SONGS and World distribution (outside of India) for THE VILLAGE HOUSE.
“I was inspired by the feminist ideas in this folktale by Vijaydan Detha, but wanted to make it as a contemporary story. I have always been interested in a folk aesthetic and am always fascinated to find connections in different folk cultures which highlight how oral traditions have traveled across the world over centuries,” observes THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE SEVEN SONGS director Pushpendra Singh. “The ending of this folk tale reminded me of Lal Ded, the 14th century mystic poetess from Kashmir and this led me to adapt it there. We shot the film with the migration cycle of the Bakarwal nomads in three schedules in different seasons.”
"THE VILLAGE HOUSE is a very personal film based on my childhood experiences, and is, in a way, my attempt to preserve the memory of our ancestral home,” says director Achal Mishra. “The film has been very warmly received by audiences across India and we are really excited now to bring the film to an international audience.”
On its own, Deaf Crocodile is currently working on a new restoration of John Carpenter’s explosive 1976 urban action classic ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 in collaboration with the film’s executive producer Joseph Kaufman. Utilizing the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements, this pristine and painstaking restoration will be the first-ever 4K version of the film available, slated for a special theatrical only re-release in early 2022 following its festival premiere.
“Almost all of John Carpenter's movies are owned by large entertainment conglomerates. One exception is ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, which is owned by people who made it,” says Joseph Kaufman. “As executive producer of the film, I am excited to work with Deaf Crocodile on a 4K scan of the original camera negative, and the possibility of applying new technology, including HDR10 and Dolby Vision, to extract much more from the negative image than has been possible before, while still respecting the movie's original roots.”
THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE SEVEN SONGS (LAILA AUR SATT GEET), 2020, India, 96 min. Director Pushpendra Singh’s latest film is a stunningly beautiful feminist fable set in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, a lush mountainous region claimed by both India and Pakistan. Based on a folktale by Rajasthani writer Vidaydan Detha as well as the life and poetry of 14th century Kashmiri mystic Lalleshwari, SHEPHERDESS follows a young bride, Laila (Navjot Randhawa, in a ferocious and unforgettable performance) who marries into a tribe of nomadic Bakarwal herders. Already harassed by local police as a minority, Laila finds herself targeted for her remarkable beauty by local officials. Her implacable and ingenious manipulation of the men who want to possess her, and the patriarchy that wants to crush her, plays out in a series of seven chapters – the Song of Regret, the Song of Playfulness – each tied into the rapturously gorgeous score by Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor. Like the mystical films of Sergei Parajanov, Singh weaves breathtaking visuals and music into a hypnotic and indelible experience. The film’s truly cosmic climax, where Laila attempts to shed the bonds of male desire and infatuation pursuing her, must be seen to be believed. “I was fascinated that Vijaydan Detha wrote a feminist story in the late 1960s which also dealt with desire and exploitation and how a woman in a conservative feudal society asserts herself and makes her own choices.” – Pushpendra Singh. (In Gujari and Hindi languages with English subtitles.)
A selection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films 2020 and the Berlin Film Festival.
“Features slow, roving camerawork that, as in Terrence Malick and Andrei Tarkovsky’s films, exhibits a reverence for and connection to the landscape and the protagonist’s deep connection to it.” – Derek Smith, Slant Magazine.
THE VILLAGE HOUSE (GAMAK GHAR), 2019, India, 91 min. The astonishing debut feature from 23-year old writer/director Achal Mishra. THE VILLAGE HOUSE is a lovely, luminous and gentle portrait of a large extended Indian family over several decades as they gather at the matriarch’s rural home, following the inevitable rhythms of change, children moving away to the city, and the inexorable decay of traditional village life. Like Bergman’s FANNY AND ALEXANDER, THE VILLAGE HOUSE is suffused with warmth and nostalgia, and a remarkable eye for detail: men cheating amiably at cards, vegetables frying in oil, kids and uncles mesmerized by a Salman Khan movie, the ephemeral poetry of the present as it slips away. “Gradually we came down to visiting only once a year,” one character observes sadly as the house falls slowly into disrepair – and as the building ages with the family, THE VILLAGE HOUSE becomes the most intimate of epics, tracing birth, death and rebirth like a flood leaving its high water mark on the bark of a tree. (In Maithili language with English subtitles.)
Winner of the Manish Acharya Award for New Voices in Indian Cinema at the 2019 Mumbai Film Festival. Winner Best Director & Best Production Design, FOI Online Awards, India.
“A quietly beautiful Indian drama exploring the ebb and flow of traditions … Like master filmmakers Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, Mishra understands how cinematic aesthetics can beautifully mirror the invisible momentum of time.” – Glenn Heath Jr., The Film Stage
Deaf Crocodile Films
For nearly thirty years Dennis Bartok has been involved in exhibition with the nonprofit American Cinematheque which operates the historic Egyptian and Aero Theatres in Los Angeles: first as head of programming, then later as general manager and acting executive director until 2020; he currently serves as special projects consultant for the organization. In 2014 he co-founded the art-house distributor Cinelicious Pics which released Anurag Kashyap’s GANGS OF WASSEYPUR, Josephine Decker’s BUTTER ON THE LATCH and THOU WAST MILD & LOVELY, Eiichi Yamamoto’s BELLADONNA OF SADNESS and Agnes Varda’s JANE B PAR AGNES V. Subsequently he co-founded distributor Arbelos Films in 2017, which restored Dennis Hopper’s THE LAST MOVIE, Bela Tarr’s SATANTANGO, Toshio Matsumoto’s FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES, and Nietzchka Keene’s THE JUNIPER TREE starring Icelandic musician Björk. In 2015 he directed & wrote the Irish supernatural thriller NAILS starring Shauna Macdonald (THE DESCENT), which streamed on Netflix from 2018 – 2020. His non-fiction book A Thousand Cuts: the Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies was hailed as one of the “Best Film Books of 2016” in the Huffington Post.
Craig Rogers has nearly 20 years of film experience. A decade-plus working in post production at IMAX instilled his passion for image quality. That experience and love of cinema history lead to film restoration where he was the lead restoration artist at Cinelicious/Cinelicous Pics. His love for the work and attention to detail led to rave reviews for the restorations of “DEATH VALLEY DAYS” (over 400 episodes), BELLADONNA OF SADNESS (1973), PRIVATE PROPERTY (1960), and FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (1969). Subsequently, he co-founded Arbelos Films in 2017, continuing his critically acclaimed restoration efforts with Dennis Hopper’s THE LAST MOVIE (1973), THE JUNIPER TREE (1993), and the monumental restoration of Bela Tarr’s 7+ hour masterpiece, SATANTANGO (1994). He is now the co-founder (with partner Dennis Bartok) of Deaf Crocodile Films where his passion for cinema continues.
For more on the company, please visit: www.deafcrocodile.com.
Gratitude Films
Anu Rangachar is an international film festival programmer, producer and acquisitions executive, based in Los Angeles (USA) and Mumbai (India). She recently co-produced the highly acclaimed Indian art-house feature NASIR, directed by Arun Karthick, that had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2020 in the main competition section, where it won the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Feature. It later screened at prestigious international film festivals, including the American Film Institute’s AFI Fest, Los Angeles and New Directors/New Films, Lincoln Center/MoMA, New York. Anu’s next feature as a co-producer is Berlinale Talents alumni Dominic Sangma’s feature film project RAPTURE which has received funds from the Hubert Bals Fund (script) and Visions Sud Est (Swiss film fund), and has also been selected in multiple markets, including CineMart, La Fabrique Cannes, Cannes Marche du Film Online and Film Bazaar. With Gratitude Films Inc., Anu branches out into acquisition and distribution of contemporary world cinema titles and restoration and re-releases in the North American territory, focusing on Independent Indian and Asian films.
The three art-house veterans first met in 2014 when Rogers and Bartok were working for start-up distributor Cinelicious Pics, and Rangachar was instrumental in helping the company negotiate U.S. rights to Anurag Kashyap’s crime epic GANGS OF WASSEYPUR. The film’s success theatrically and on Netflix in the U.S. convinced the three that there is a tremendous and still-underserved audience here for challenging new Indian and world cinema. Working together and individually, Deaf Crocodile and Gratitude plan to release 4 to 6 films annually.