On Marching in the Dark: In Conversation with Kinshuk Surjan

Recently screened at DIFF, Kinshuk Surjan’s Marching in the Dark (2024) draws hope and resilience from female farmers in Maharashtra, who continue to strive for lives of dignity in the aftermath of their farmer-husbands’ suicides. Negotiating grief as well as societal expectations, the women come together to provide one another support and succour. For his empathetic portrayal of their everyday acts of resistance, Surjan won the Gender Sensitivity Award presented by the Film Critics’ Guild at DIFF. In this edited interview, the director speaks to us about why he made the film, some of the challenges he faced, taking an observational approach and the importance of community for the farmer widows.

Mallika Visvanathan (MV): Marching in the Dark is inspired by what you have seen personally and in your childhood. Can you please tell us a bit about why you decided to make this film and tell this story?

Kinshuk Surjan (KS): Coming from a family of farmers and journalists, I have always felt a desire to do something about the farmers’ suicides. For almost two decades, I have been aware of the crisis but felt powerless to act. Personally, I feel mostly dissatisfied with the kind of representation I see of people from our rural and agrarian communities—it tends to be either too romanticised or looked down upon.  

In 2013, I tried making a film about it. The film was called Pola, and it was told from the point of view of a nine-year-old boy who fears losing his father while the whole village is celebrating the harvest festival. Unfortunately, while it was acknowledged and awarded at film festivals, it did not have any larger meaningful impact in the lives of farmers.  

After many years, when I got the opportunity to make a feature film. While being based between Bhopal and Belgium, I read about the farmers’ march at night from Nasik to Mumbai. Before this, I had started feeling pessimistic about reading statistics of suicides in the newspapers every year, where they had just become numbers. But I questioned my pessimism—if farmers were marching, what excuse did I have to remain stagnant?

These were some of my initial impulses to make the film. But the film has been truly inspired by meeting resilient women like Parimala tai and Sanjivani, who have not only paid off the debts of their husbands but also work in farms, take care of their children, and sometimes fight for their land. Amidst all this, they have a sense of duty to be there for others, to go beyond the self. They find solace for the self in the act of being there for others in their grief. That became the inspiration for this film because I had never processed or thought about grief in such a way before. What started as an ideological pursuit became a passion over the years to tell stories with my beloved friends—Sanjivani, Parvati, Parimala tai and many others. Sanjivani says that when you meet others in grief, your own grief feels smaller.

MV: The film took five years to make. What were some of the challenges you faced?

KS: The first challenge was deciding where to begin and how to truly understand the subject deeply. There were so many false starts for almost a year. How does one tell a story of such enormous complexity? How do I explain to an urban audience, perhaps unaware of concepts like Minimum Support Price or how our markets work? And then there is the even more complex issue of social ostracisation faced by widows, compounded by challenges of land ownership, gaze, dignity and patriarchy. The fear was that such exposition might not leave enough space for emotion. The kind of cinema I want to make begins with personal stories first, rather than serving as social or political vessels. 

Secondly, how do I even sustain a film like this for so long if I don’t have hope? How do you even put a camera in a house where there is so much grief? Another factor was gender. Being a man in an orthodox society, even sitting in one space and talking with widowed women of my age was often not possible in the initial years. 

But most of these challenges were eased because eventually Sanjivani was not just a protagonist but also a partner. At every turn, we decided together how we could tell her story from ideation to editing to subtitling. She was the moral guide and the strength of the film. When faced with extremely difficult dilemmas, I also relied on her sensitivity to ensure we remained non-intrusive in our filming (as much as possible). There were times when I would start doubting myself or my morale would fail, and she would say, “What is difficult about this? Let’s do this! Why are you scared?” Her sense of dignity, pride and her confidence in our shared purpose nurtured me.

Ultimately, the challenges were overcome with the support of wonderful collaborators, and Sanjivani is, in many ways, the co-writer of the film.

MV: How did you decide on an observational approach to shooting the film? 

KS: I chose this observational approach because I did not feel I had a place in this story. Sometimes, stories are about the relationship between me and the person I am with, so the camera does not focus on either of us, but on the space in between—our relationship. In this story, it felt far more important to simply be there silently, somewhere. You would have also observed that when you are trying to be there for someone, it is not about you. It is just about being there, silently, in that presence, doing whatever you can. Since that is the subtext of the film, it felt right to choose an observational approach for this one. The form allowed us to translate the temporality and rhythms of being there with the people and their daily life well. An observational approach, especially on the tripod, teaches you to wait and allows you to stay.

But the larger question is how do we make films with people and not on them, especially when there is such a gap of power and privilege between the filmmaker and people being filmed? If the people being filmed have historically been marginalised and underrepresented on screen, then isn't the very act of simply showing everyday lives—together through deep collaboration and with as little bias, distortion and interruption as possible—an act of resistance? 

To just share an anecdote—it took us a long time to find a good tripod that allowed us to film at eye level sitting down on the floor. Ironically, most filming is done for people who sit on the chair and most tripods are designed like that.

All cinematographers worked hard and really crafted images well, Vishal helped in setting up the foundations for how to shoot the meeting room, and Leena was able to translate intimacy of relationships with the protagonists. I really respect how she translated ideas—like Babli not getting a new bag into a shot that conveys Sanjivani’s restlessness, humiliation and pain in darkness with just a streak of light. All these decisions were about how to translate being with someone, not always focusing on them. 

MV: Sanjivani’s husband's absence is very palpable in the film. But I could only remember one instance where we see his photograph. Can you talk a bit about that choice? 

KS: On one hand, it is a dilemma: the faces in the photographs must be shown because farmers are becoming faceless numbers, yet it should be done without seeking sympathy. First, I would like to share that many women do not have photos with their deceased husbands at all. Parvati, for instance, photoshopped herself with her husband to create a picture of them together, using his passport photograph from a camera studio—an act that speaks volumes about the longing for shared memories that never existed or were erased by circumstance. Many times, only that small passport-sized photograph used in the bank passbook remains. Or, if there is a larger photo, it’s precious and covered in plastic, as it’s the only one. Sanjivani’s family had one larger photo, which was kept inside the almirah wrapped in her sari for many years after her husband passed away. It took courage and healing to place it on the wall and confront it. Grief haunts.

MV: The film recognises that you need a space beyond the family—that is where friendship is possible. Can you please talk about having the meeting space which is also in a way the scaffolding in your film?

KS: I gradually understood that families often do not recognise the grief and pain women experience after losing their husbands, frequently isolating or even blaming them. On the other hand, even in traditional bachat gats where women gather, widows sometimes are not made to feel welcome as part of the group. This creates a lack of social spaces where they can feel understood and find belonging, unlike men who enjoy several social spaces in rural areas. 

After discussions, we created such a space together—Sanjivani, Dr. Potdar and I, along with others—because, on one side, I met women in extreme grief and pain, where even holding a camera felt criminal. Their eyes had dried from crying, they stared into a vacuum, had not slept for days and barely ate. Those images still haunt me. On the other hand, we also met Parimala tai, Parvati and Radha tai—women who have challenged society in small yet meaningful ways. They wear a bindi, work outside the home beyond farming, or have pursued education. Each, in their way, has rebelled or is silently marching forward. In that region, even the act of living day-to-day while finding autonomy—deciding what to do against societal and familial expectations, patriarchal rules, orthodox taboos, financial challenges and grief—is an act of resistance. The women I met had this deep sense of, “What we have gone through, we don’t want others to go through.” Parimala tai says, “This burden of grief—you cannot carry it on your shoulders alone. At least when you are able to be there for someone, it lightens your heart.”

From that idea, we wondered if there could be a space for fostering friendships, sharing resilience and healing? We wanted it to be safe, so we invited Dr. Potdar, who was very interested in the idea of peer-to-peer therapy. For me, it felt more like friendships, so we called it Maitri Gat.

The space also became a place for practical questions—how to send children to school, get a gas connection, or apply for compensation. There’s only a one-month window to apply after a husband’s death, and in the fog of grief, many don’t know this. Suicide is such a taboo, but this space allowed people to meet and talk about it. It also became a space for questions for women about men’s emotions. That’s why we brought in a male psychologist—because many women had questions like, “Why do men drink? What should we do about our sons? We can’t bear it if our sons follow the same path. Why don’t men share what’s going on in their minds? If he had just told me, we would have cut sugarcane and managed somehow.”

These questions led to discussions and, sometimes, tension. The space became a platform to challenge stereotypes, celebrate festivals and break the fear of judgment. Often, we didn’t film the person speaking, as their experience was reflected in the listener—through a tightening throat, a quivering lip. One person’s words mirrored through the group, creating a sense of not being alone. But most of the time, we had so much fun together, there was a lot of laughter and gossip, a place to just unwind from daily life.

To learn more about DIFF 2024, read Mallika Visvanathan’s interview with the founders Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam and watch the previous episodes of In Person with Udit Khurana as he discusses his film Taak (2024), Jhansy Giting Dokgre Marak on her film Chaware (2023), Gavati Wad on her film O Seeker (2024) and Vani Subramanian on her film Cinema Pe Cinema (2024).

All images are stills from Marching in the Dark (2024) by Kinshuk Surjan. Images courtesy of the director.