Private Project

SINKING

Through a kaleidoscopic series of snapshots in the backdrop of an anonymous metropolis that is rumoured to be sinking over the next 50 years, an immigrant mother and daughter search for her missing husband, a palaeontologist excavating an unidentified fossil reminisces over the guilt of his failed love and 3 unemployed migrant workers grapple with survival while something mysterious and primal starts awakening beneath the earth.

  • Amartya Ray
    Director
    Portraits: 2020, Our Mountain Valley Home, Dhulo, Petrichor
  • Amartya Ray
    Writer
  • Film And Television Institute Of India
    Producer
  • Saurabh Sachdeva
    Key Cast
    "K"
  • Naina Of Dargan
    Key Cast
    "Maya"
  • Raju Biswas
    Cinematography
  • Nawas Ali
    Edit
  • Sudarshan Sawant
    Sound Recording and Design
  • Sarfaraz Khan
    Production Design
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Mystery, Sci-Fi, drama
  • Runtime:
    24 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 24, 2023
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    Assamese, English, Hindi
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Film And Television Institute Of India
Director Biography - Amartya Ray

Amartya Ray is a direction and screenplay alumni from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). His directorial works:
- Portraits: 2020 (IDSFFK Official Selection 2021;Fur gold lotus for best fiction PSBT challenge; Official selection at Changing Perspectives International Film Festival) - short fiction
- Our Mountain Valley Home (officially selection at Dharamshala International Film Festival 2020; Official selection in main competition for IDSFFK 2021) - short documentary
- Sinking (Diploma film, short fiction)
- Petrichor (Single Take short fiction)
- Dhulo (FTII short fiction project)
He is currently co-creating a web drama and writing for his first feature. Alongside this he plans on making an experimental and personal documentary.
Amartya is also a singer-songwriter and an actor. He has acted in three feature films, two of which have been released nationally and one is slated for world wide release. He believes that the inter-disciplinary forms allow him to learn from each other and ultimately help in telling a better story.
Amartya wants to identify the “human” in today’s changing world through his narratives, images, sounds and mis-en-scene.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

SINKING is an attempt at expressing a recurring alienation I have felt with the idea of “modernity” associated with urban landscapes.

Since leaving my hometown to study filmmaking, I have travelled the ever developing cities of my country, especially its metropolises like Mumbai. I have observed that in the unrelenting march of “progress” and the verticality of not only our urban landscapes but also our aspirations, there is much that is left behind, many who sink beneath the city’s weight and a lot that we forget to feel.

SINKING observes one such growing city where the constant digging of the earth awakens something primal by mistake. It perhaps calls for us to dig into our own-self (beyond the apathy) and awaken something essentially human which is getting buried deeper everyday.

In the recent past, India has faced massive disregard of human rights of migrant workers. In Assam, individuals have gone missing on the basis of proof of identity. The mother’s search and the 3 migrant workers of SINKING cannot be removed from relation to these recent events.

I was also quite intrigued by a news that parts of India will start submerging over the next 50 years, starting from one of the most affluent and industrial parts of its metropolis Mumbai. There is a certain poetic irony with which nature tends to readjusts the balance. What does this ominous forewarning mean for the future? Is there still time to change or salvage ourselves?

SINKING perhaps, then becomes a warning sign.