Tumbbad (2018)

Interesting facts

• Box office: ₹154.6M
• Budget: ₹50M
• Earned 3.1× its budget
• Awards: 6 · Nominations: 0. Including: Sitges Film Festival Best cinematography; Filmfare Award for Best Cinematographer; Filmfare Award for Best Art Direction; Filmfare Award for Best Sound Design

Tumbbad is a 2018 folk horror film directed by Rahi Anil Barve and Anand Gandhi, and written by Mitesh Shah, Adesh Prasad, Barve, and Anand Gandhi. It stars Sohum Shah in the lead role as Vinayak Rao, and follows the story of his search for a hidden 20th century treasure in the Indian village of Tumbbad, Maharashtra.

Production

Director Rahi Anil Barve said the title is derived from Shripad Narayan Pendse's Marathi novel Tumbadche Khot. He wrote the first draft in 1997, when he was 18 years old. From 2009 to 2010, he created a 700-page storyboard within eight months, which he said was the "anchor on which everything was based." Barve wrote the script based on a story his friend had told when they were in the Nagzira wildlife sanctuary in 1993 "which made him crap his pa…

Sohum Shah was cast in the role of Vinayak Rao, for which he gained eight kilograms (eighteen pounds). Since the production took six years, he maintained his character's look for the entire period. Shah said that he was surprised after hearing the story for the time because he "hadn't seen anything like this in Indian cinema." He found it similar to Vikram Baital and Panchatantra.

Tumbbad first went into production in 2008 with Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the lead role but was quickly shelved as the producer backed out. It was then shot in 2012 after Shah and Gandhi came on board. The film has minimal dialogue and was shot with constant physical movement with few cuts. Barve said, "we shot in the rain at age-old locations, where no human had ventured for at least a hundred years.

Barve created a story book for reference. Kumar called the filming process "long, strong and intense." It was decided the film's look would be "moody and gloomy"; the village had to look timeless "without a clear demarcation between day and night." The shooting was done without any sunlight on Red Camera in digital format.

The film had four colour schemes including blue, cold grey, red and gold. 50 lanterns and lamps were used for several scenes to avoid modern-day lighting techniques since it was a period film. The scenes inside the womb took 15 to 20 days to shoot without any visual effects. The character of Hastar was created with heavy prosthetic makeup by prosthetics makeup artist Gurpreet Singh Dhuri and that required six to seven hours to prepare.

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