CAT STICKS
Directed by Ronny Sen
Written by Ronny Sen and Soumyak Kanti DeBiswas
Produced by Tanaji Dasgupta, Soumyak Kanti DeBiswas, Theodore Shivdasani
Starring Tanmay Dhanania, Sumeet Thakur, Joyraj Bhattacharjee, Rahul Dutta, Saurabh Saraswat, Sreejita Mitra, Raja Chakravorty, Kalpan Mitra
WORLD PREMIERE @ SLAMDANCE
SYNOPSIS:
On a rainy night in Calcutta a group of desperate addicts chase brown sugar, but the permanent intoxication they seek proves elusive. Cat Sticks weaves their stories into a chiaroscuro, traverses with them through states high and low, spaces real and unreal. A relentless downpour plays backdrop to lives balanced on a precarious high. Some of them seek a release, while others do not seem to want the night to end.
Ronny Sen brings the bold style of his fine art photography to this story about an underground community of junkies who scrounge a living on the streets of Kolkata. Stunning compositions capture his characters emerging from and disappearing into inky blackness, intermittently drenched in rain. At the core of Sen’s feature debut are the human connections between these forgotten souls—the director has clearly immersed himself in this world, and captures its textures, language and mannerisms with great sensitivity and style. He masterfully weaves sequences of pure cinema, rendered with modern-dance informed movement, into his raw and gritty narrative. ‘Cat Sticks’ is one of the most gorgeous and affecting films Slamdance has presented in recent memory.
Director: Ronny Sen
Writer: Ronny Sen and Soumyak Kanti DeBiswas
Cast: Tanmay Dhanania, Sumeet Thakur, Joyraj Bhattacharjee, Rahul Dutta, Saurabh Saraswat, Sreejita Mitra, Raja Chakravorty, Kalpan Mitra
TRT: 94 mins
Country: India
Language: Bengali (English subtitles) Narrative Feature: World Premiere
Slamdance Screenings:
World Premiere: Sunday, January 27th, 12:45pm @ Ballroom, Park City, UT Second Screening: Thursday, January 31st, 3:15pm @ Ballroom, Park City, UT
[…] Slamdance — a pageant {that a} bunch of subversive filmmakers instituted again in 1995, after they refused rejection from the extra illustrious Sundance Movie Pageant — marks it as “one of the crucial beautiful and affecting movies [the festival] has offered in latest reminiscence”. […]
[…] Slamdance — a festival that a bunch of subversive filmmakers instituted back in 1995, when they refused rejection from the more illustrious Sundance Film Festival — marks it as “one of the most gorgeous and affecting films [the festival] has presented in recent memory”. […]