India-China Locarno Film ‘Rapture’ Explores the Politics of Fear

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Indian filmmaker Dominic Sangma’s “Rapture” (“Rimdogittanga”) is the second in a trilogy of films based on his memories of village life that began with his debut feature “Ma’ama” (2018).

The Garo-language film, which revolves around a 10-year-old boy who suffers from night blindness and for whom every night is terrifying when his village is gripped by the fear of child-kidnappers, originated from another memory of Sangma, who hails from Meghalaya in northeastern India. “The film germinated from the fear I experienced when I was a kid, fear of others, others that don’t look like us, or talk like us, the outsiders, also the idea of child kidnappers or a stranger lurking around at night is very common in northeastern India,” Sangma told Variety. “Fear is a very important tool in the hands of power be it in religion or politics, there is so much fear and hatred among each other in our time.” “What I wish through my film is to make the audience ask the right questions to find the right answer.

Who creates this fear? What are we afraid of? I want to create doubt in their belief system that nothing is absolute – one of the factors that divide us nowadays is our belief system, it can be anything, religion, ideologies, political inclination etc,” Sangma added.

The fear the villagers experience in the film is also due to a church prophesy that an apocalyptic darkness lasting 80 days is imminent. “The majority of the population in Meghalaya is Christian and the church plays a very important role in the community yet knowingly or unknowingly lots of our practices involve ancient beliefs even if most of us have become Christian,” Sangma said.