BOMBAY ROSE 

2D Animation | 96 min | Hindi | India/UK/France/Qatar | 2019 

Written and Directed by Gitanjali Rao 

Animation by PaperBoat Design Studios | Produced by Cinestaan Film Company and Les Films Dici

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Escaping from child marriage, Kamala, a young club dancer living in the streets of Bombay, must choose between fending for her family and finding love with Salim, a Kashmiri boy orphaned by the militancy.

Painted frame by frame and woven delicately through music, a red rose brings together three tales of impossible loves. Love between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy. Love between two women. Love of an entire city for its Bollywood stars.

Based on true events, the film explores the ruthlessness of a society where the love and life that reigns on the big screen can crush you in its mean streets.

Painted frame by frame, the depiction of urban reality has a documentary style, whereas the intricate dream worlds are inspired from the rich and varied folk art styles of India.

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Painted frame by frame over a period of 2 years, at PaperBoat Animation Studios, India,  this labour of love  was conceived 6 years ago at the Cannes Next Step script lab. Gitanjali has managed to retain her own graphic style by designing all the characters and making the entire storyboard herself. 

The film's talent include Sound Design by PM Satheesh, Production Design by Rupali Gatti, Color Concepts  by Shailesh Ambre, Lyrics by Swanand Kirkire and the Voice of Cyli Khare.

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE

Life for most street dwellers in Bombay is a day-to-day struggle for survival. Steeped in deprivation, homelessness and lacking basic human rights, people escape to the cinemas to forget reality. Bollywood, for a few hours, offers this fantasy. But when the same fantasy begins to influence and substitute reality, the balance is lost.

I have always wanted to tell the stories about the unsung heroes who live and love in Bombay, never become success stories, yet their struggle for survival makes heroes out of them. The use of frame by frame painted animation enables me to traverse seamlessly between the real and the dream world, poetically rather than realistically. Steering away from the convention of using voices and the acting skills of Bollywood stars who do not belong to the milieu of my characters, I believe in encouraging the animators to use their own acting skills to breathe life into them.

BOMBAY ROSE is homage to the undying romantic, living the celluloid dream.