One of the most beautiful films I’ve seen in the last few years, Pushpendra Singh’s The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs is finally getting a U.S. theatrical release next month. A selection at Berlinale and New Directors/New Films, the drama will come to The Museum of Modern Art, courtesy of Deaf Crocodile Films and theatrical partner Gratitude Films, beginning on January 12th, 2022 for a week-long run, followed by a spring 2022 VOD release, with support from Grasshopper Film.
The fourth feature from Singh is the second of their works adapting celebrated Rajasthani writer Vidaydan Detha, while also taking great inspiration from 14th-century Indian folklore. Divided into seven separate sections, each structured around a unique song that acts as insight into the protagonist’s inner world, the film follows a young bride, Laila (Navjot Randhawa), who marries into a tribe of nomadic Bakarwal herders. Already harassed by local police as a minority, Laila finds herself targeted for her remarkable beauty by local officials. Her implacable and ingenious manipulation of the men who want to possess her, and the patriarchy that wants to crush her, plays out in these chapters.
“It is an honor for the film to be showcased at MoMA” says Singh. “I hope the screenings will bring to light a culture marginalized by the might of a state, and further neglected by the media and non-government organizations.”
Glenn Heath Jr. said in his review, “Northwest India’s Jammu and Kashmir region resides at the center of a longstanding geopolitical stalemate involving neighboring Pakistan. While those tensions are referenced in The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs, they are not the film’s focal point. Instead, paranoia and opportunism have become fully ingrained in the forest area’s mountainous bedrock. Of more importance is why these characters either accept or subvert such societal realities, and how they normalize modes of corruption and gender inequality under the guise of tradition or progress.”
See the trailer below.
The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs opens on January 12 at MoMA.