It took actor-filmmaker Gitanjali Rao over six years to complete Bombay Rose, her first animated feature film that is competing at the India Gold section of the Jio MAMI 21st Mumbai Film Festival. With an aim to mark a major paradigm shift in Indian animation, Rao has taken upon herself to fight against preconceptions of the moving image art making as a form in the country.
Her film Bombay Rose, based on true events, focuses on intimate, occasionally difficult reactions to systematic injustice. The film makes striking use of non-linear storytelling to create a sense of unravelling identity. With characters like— a dancer who works at an illegal nightclub, a Kashmiri Muslim youth orphaned by the military and a bigoted gangster— Rao’s vision is less children’s fantasy and more gritty realism.