Election season is heating up in Uttar Pradesh and as usual, instead of development and social welfare, the main issues seem to be caste and religion. Like in every election, this time too there is stiff competition among the political parties for the valuable votes of the oppressed and backward sections. Yet again they are being lured by promises and cheap freebies, only to be discarded once the elections are over.
Amidst all this however, comes a new short film titled “Biscut” which is catching the attention of people during these elections. That is because, the protagonist of this film ‘Bhura’ is a backward class youth who uses an ordinary ‘Biscut’ to take revenge on his upper caste boss in a mysterious yet thrilling manner. It is a gritty and inspiring story that shows the mysterious ways our democracy works and how our votes are still the best bet for revenge and change. The short film is out on the Gorilla Shorts YouTube Channel, as a part of their ongoing Offbeats Season 1 series. The other stories of the series like Station Master Phool Kumar and Chaddi are already huge hits among the audiences.
‘Biscut’ has been written and directed by Amish Srivastava, who lives in Virginia, USA. Amish studied screenplay writing at UCLA Extension, an American university famous for film studies, and learned film direction in New York. Producer Sandeep Shant is the CEO of Detroit-based TSS Films who grew up in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh – so he wanted the film to be shot in his village, not on a set. The entire shooting crew and lead actors from Mumbai film industry were stationed in Balrampur for about ten days and the shooting was completed in seven days. The shooting took place in Surat Singh Deeh, a remote village of Balrampur. Dozens of villagers from this village also played an important role in the film who had never seen a film camera in their life before. The presence of all these villagers gives a feel of reality in the film.
Veteran actor Chittaranjan Tripathy of Sacred Games game, plays the role of the village’s domineering sarpanch ‘Navratan Singh’. The protagonist Dalit ‘Bhura’ is played by Amarjeet Singh who was last seen in the web series Mirzapur and Paatal Lok. Biscuit baker ‘Sattan’ i.e. Chetan Sharma had earlier wowed the audiences in the films Ankhon Dekhi and Pagglait.
The film Biscuit has been screened at Italy, USA, Chile, England, Canada & at a dozens of film festivals in India and has won Best Social Film and Best Audience awards in addition to Best Direction, Actor & Music. “Biscut” was released in India for the first time on 7th February 2022 only on the Gorilla Shorts YouTube channel.
