Gurvinder Singh

Gurvinder Singh is an Indian film director. He is best known for his Punjabi language films Anhe Ghore Da Daan, and Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction) which premiered at Venice and Cannes Film Festival respectively. Gurvinder is an alumnus of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune from where he studied film-making and graduated in 2001. He travelled extensively through Punjab between 2002 and 2006, living and wandering with folk itinerants, documenting folk ballads and oral narratives. It led to his first documentary ‘Pala’. He continued to make short experimental works and documenting arts/artists for the next few years. In 2005 he was invited by avant-garde Indian filmmaker Mani Kaul to be his teaching assistant for a master-class at FTII, which led to a close association with the filmmaker who became his mentor. He translated and published a book of conversations of Udayan Vajpeyi with Mani Kaul, titled ‘Uncloven Space’. His latest film is 'infiltrator' starring Veer Rajwant Singh which is a 15 minute short story in an international omnibus called 'In the same garden'

His first short film Pala was a documentary based on one of the Punjabi folk singers and was sponsored by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA). He directed his first fiction feature in Punjabi, Anhe Ghore Da Daan (English: Alms for a Blind Horse) in 2011. The film, based on the novel of the same name by well-known Punjabi writer Gurdial Singh, dealt with the angst and distress of the marginalised lower caste in Punjab. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and screened at various festivals including Rotterdam, Busan, London, Munich, etc, besides releasing at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. It won the ‘Special Jury Award’ at Abu Dhabi Film Festival, and the ‘Golden Peacock’ for Best Film at the International Film Festival of India, Goa, in 2012. It also won three National Awards in India, including National Film Award for Best Direction and National Film Award for Best Cinematography’ at the 59th National Film Awards presented on 3 May 2012.The award consisted of 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and a cash prize of ₹250,000 (US$3,700)/-. The jury presented the awards for,

...its haunting portrayal of the lives of people in a village as they battle with the reality of large scale industrial development. The director deploys an inventive storytelling form where sound, space and body operate distinctly to frame the experience of a fragile existence. Each face portrayed in the film carries the signs of persistent trauma. This is an aesthetic tour de force that confidently and successfully reinvents the contours of Indian experimental cinema.

His second feature Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction), an Indo-French co-production, premiered in ‘Un Certain Regard’ competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015. Based on two short stories by Punjabi writer Waryam Singh Sandhu, the film explores the fear, mistrust and paranoia in Punjab in the background of the militant unrest in the 1980s. The New York Times write in one review,

...a fictional tale that opens with two Hindu men running and closes with them walking together with several newfound Sikh confederates in a quietly moving assertion of Indian unity. In between, the country’s political and religious agonies largely shudder right below the surface, creating intense, palpable unease.

The film has travelled to various international festivals and won the ‘Grand Prix’ at the Belgrade Auteur Film Festival, the Singapore International Film Festival Silver Screen Award for Best Asian Feature Film. and the ‘Golden Gateway’ for Best Indian Film at the Mumbai Film Festival. It received the National Award for ‘Best Punjabi Film’ in 2015. The film recently had a commercial release in France and is due to release in India in August 2016.

He recently completed a travelogue film on the well-known Punjabi poet and friend Amarjit Chandan, titled Awaazan (Voices). The film follows the poet’s meetings with old friends and comrades through East Punjab and culminates in a meeting with John Berger in France. He was recently invited by a Turkish production house to direct a short film as part of an international omnibus of ten short films from ten countries. The film titled Ghuspaithia (Infiltrator) will premiere this year as part of the omnibus titled ‘In The Same Garden’.

He has also directed music videos for singers Rabbi Shergill and Jasbir Jassi for their respective renditions of Punjabi folk song Jugni.

59th National Film Awards

• 2011 - Best Direction for Anhe Ghore Da Daan
• 2011 - Best Feature Film in Punjabi for Anhe Ghore Da Daan; shared with NFDC (producer)

63rd National Film Awards

• 2015 - Best Feature Film in Punjabi for Chauthi Koot; shared with NFDC & Kartikeya Singh (producers)

Others

• 2011- Special Jury Award for Anhe Ghore Da Daan, Abu Dhabi Film Festival
• 2012 - Golden Peacock for Best Film for Anhe Ghore Da Daan, International Film Festival of India
• 2012 - Best Film for Anhe Ghore Da Daan, Imagine India Film Festival, Madrid
• 2012 - Paris Project Award at the 10th Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum for Chauthi Koot. Shared with Flowing Stories directed by Tsang Tsui-shan.
• 2015 - Golden Gateway for Chauthi Koot, MAMI Mumbai Film Festival
• 2015 - Grand Prix for Chauthi Koot, Belgrade Auteur Film Festival
• 2015 - Silver Screen Award for Best Asian Film for Chauthi Koot, Singapore International Film Festival

• "Gurvinder Singh's film wins Hong Kong Fest award". Indian television.com. 23 March 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012. 
• ""Četvrti pravac" pobednik 21. Festivala autorskog filma | Festival autorskog filma". faf.rs. Retrieved 2016-06-17.