New York: Emerging filmmaker Priyanka Dass feature debut- Under the Jazz.Circulation. Formation. is all set to be released in film festivals.
India-born Das received her MFA and MA in film from Ohio University and now creates alternative art films.
She finds a great perspective in the cultural and social layers that make up her identity. Her professional filmmaking journey started with the beauty of the nomadic tribes and landscapes along the Indo-China border, just north of Ladakh, emboldening her to continue engaging with the visual medium.
Das is most well-known for her dramatic short film Return (2016), a 15-minute piece that follows womans grief-ridden arrival home for her mothers funeral as she dwells on her responsibilities as a daughter. Das also wrote and directed Fragmented-Connected (2015), and Together (2014) both explore contradictions and duality. Return was positively reviewed by The Times of India in the year of its release. Her previous films were screened over 25 renowned international film festival across the world including Cannes, Beijing, Clermont-Ferrand, Oberhausen, Kolkata International, and the Euro.
Das also acknowledges the responsibilities and struggles that come with being an immigrant in the United States a set of difficulties that act as her inspiration. Das is very aware of the societal and linguistic barriers that create literal distance between immigrant populations and native groups, who often cannot interact with one another because of communicative separation, rather than mere ethnic or religious distinctions. In this field, I try to bridge the gap and find ways of explaining [this phenomenon], and I talk and think about the transnational diasporic experience, she said.
Her feature debut- Under the Jazz.Circulation. Formation, is soon to be released in film festivals. This film explores her thoughts on the idea of difference and what it means to assimilate to the new social milieu and national environments in our time.
Currently, she is working on her next feature film, which is in the pre-production stage now, and will be shot in India casting Indian local talents. In addition, Das will be working on several video art installations, focused on shattering heteronormative constraints and building upon feminine voice.
