Rima Das Reacts to Being on the Berlin Film Festival Jury

Rima Das talks about working with children and returning to Berlin Film Festival as a jury member.

Rima Das speaks about being on the jury of the Berlin International Film Festival. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

National Award-winning director Rima Das has been chosen as one of the jury members for the Generation 14Plus category at the Berlin International Film Festival. But her association with the international film festival is a long one. Two out of three films (Village Rockstars and Bulbul Can Sing), produced and directed by Das, have been showcased there. The other jury members for the 14Plus category are Iran’s Abbas Amini and South Africa’s Jenna Bass.

Rima Das received the National Award for ‘Village Rockstars’. (Photo: Twitter)

Das says that her stories have been inspired from her hometown. Talking fondly about Assam she says, “There are so many rivers in Assam and so many stories associated with these rivers.” The independent filmmaker and producer says she loved working with children.

“I just felt like working with children when I met them. And when I started working with them is when I realised they completely surrender their trust. And they trust you. And when someone trusts you you feel good. You feel more confident,” says Das.

Rima Das also added that she believes in the magic of films. “If the story is relatable and there’s some magic that comes through in the storytelling, your story will transcend borders,” she says while talking about her films that have been showcased at international film festivals.

(Photo: Twitter)

“Berlin is magical. I had a really good time there. It’s also just...like I have great friends. And I am very comfortable there. And interestingly, I was just doing a project with Jia Zhangke. It's a BRIC project. It was an anthology of five countries. And I was working with Jenna Bass, she is from South Africa. So I met her in the last film festival. And we became friends. And I just saw her name and I saw that she's on the jury generation 14 plus,” Das says on returning to International Berlin Film Festival as a jury member.