Bharat Singh Parihar’s debut feature, Bhediya Dhasaan (Sheep Barn), follows a migrant laborer who returns to his Himalayan village, hoping to take his aging father to the city. However, the elder character’s resistance forces him to stay, pulling him into suffocating rhythms of fear and moral decay. Shot against the serene backdrop of Uttarakhand, Bhediya Dhasaan draws emotional depth from a cast of professional and first-time actors, bringing rare authenticity to its frames. With its subtle narrative and restrained aesthetics, the film lingers as a poignant tale of home, memory, the invisible chains of belonging and the dregs of corruption. 

Bhediya Dhasaan premiered in India at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala and internationally at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2025. In this conversation, Parihar reveals not only the practical challenges of independent filmmaking, but also the deep personal investment required to bring such a rooted story to life.

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Dipankar Sarkar: What drew you to the story of this film, and how did the Himalayan village setting shape its thematic and visual design?

Bharat Singh Parihar: The story of this film made me think deeply about the poor people whose lives are always on the margins — people who have no clear choices in life. I have personally witnessed poverty in villages closely during my childhood, which is why I can deeply understand the helplessness and hardships of that life. This aspect drew me strongly towards the story.

The second aspect is related to the “tiger,” because I am from a small hill station in Uttarakhand called Gwaldam, situated in the Chamoli district. As a child, I often heard and saw how tigers would come near villages and carry away dogs. There were even reports of incidents where small children were taken. Hence, my connection to this subject is deep and personal.

In 2017, when I was studying filmmaking at Nainital University, my classmate Ramendra Singh, who is also the writer of this film, narrated this incident to me. Having worked in journalism for several years, he told me about cases in the Pilibhit region of Uttarakhand in 2017, where some elderly people died in leopard attacks. Many newspapers speculated that perhaps these people had deliberately surrendered themselves to the leopards, due to poverty and helplessness. Moreover, the government had started providing compensation to the families of those who died in tiger or leopard attacks.

I believe that my attempt to depict the harsh life of the hills and the sociocultural reality there has made this subject even more impactful. Through this story, I have not only tried to present a bitter truth, but also to show how circumstances can sometimes force human beings to make decisions that are almost unimaginable.

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DS: Bhediya Dhasaan’s narrative juxtaposes generational conflict, poverty and social hierarchy with the suspense of an unseen man-eater. How did you calibrate the tonal balance between realism and thriller?

BSP: I believe I was able to retain realism because the village was deeply ingrained in me. I knew its every nuance. I wanted to make a film rooted in that soil –one that didn’t feel artificial or detached. I often wondered why outsiders, or even those living here, fail to look beneath the surface when they make films about the hills. Is it because they want to preserve a certain image of their culture and ideals rather than showing the hills as they truly are? Or do they simply miss the subtle details that reveal the place’s real layers?

That’s why, three months before the shoot, I started living in Mukteshwar and the surrounding villages again, carefully observing the small things that had grown faint in my memory after moving to the city. I also enriched the script with local flavor by adding small hill dialects and bits of the regional language. I even had some dialogues dubbed by local people for the actors from Mumbai, especially for Kalyan’s character.

At the same time, I wanted to tell this story in an engaging and intriguing manner. Perhaps that’s why I could sustain a sense of thrill throughout. And much of the credit goes to the writing itself.

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DS: Bhediya Dhasaan examines the exploitation of vulnerable villagers by corrupt officials and a rigid social framework. What compelled you to foreground these sociopolitical dimensions?

BSP: These were the key concerns of the story. When I decided to make the film, the biggest challenge was that it had multiple narrative threads. But at its core, I wanted to focus on one central theme — the story of a system. How does the entire system of this place function?  How does it create a cycle that becomes almost impossible to escape? Slowly, you find yourself becoming entangled in it. And if you try to break free, you end up getting caught in it even more.

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DS: The protagonist’s growing disillusionment with his village and its oppressive structures is a central thread in Bhediya Dhasaan. How did you shape this emotional arc to avoid sentimentality while preserving its dramatic weight?

BSP: In essence, I approached this story as a satire on society — one that revolves around the constant search for opportunities. Through dark humor, I wanted to show how, even amid deaths in the village, people become strikingly insensitive because of their need to seize any chance they get. Death itself begins to feel like a joke. Poverty makes everything seem like a game. I wanted to present all of this through the protagonist’s perspective.

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DS: The tiger is never visually depicted, yet it looms over the narrative, appearing even in the poetry recited by Rahul to his grandfather, Bada Durga (Shrish Dobhal). Was this deliberate absence symbolic? If so, what does it signify?

BSP: There wasn’t any symbolic decision as such. I can explain why the tiger was only mentioned. Firstly, the tiger was a tool for me to build the narrative; my focus was entirely on human relationships and their suffocation. Secondly, I did want to show the tiger in certain places to make the story feel more authentic, but budget constraints didn’t allow it. However, Rahul’s poem carried a metaphor we intentionally wanted to highlight: how a man like Bada Durga lives inside a cage of his own making, trapped by his outdated ideology.

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DS: In Bhediya Dhasaan, the schoolteacher is shown as an arrogant woman, and Chhota’s wife, who has left him, is only mentioned in conversation. There seems to be an absence of a central female character. Could you explain the reason behind this choice?

BSP: This came from my personal observation. Since childhood, I’ve seen the hills and noticed this absence. Women are incredibly hardworking. They do everything themselves. Yet, when it comes to being seen or taking center stage, it’s always the men, almost as if it’s an unwritten rule that certain roles belong only to them.

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DS: The father continues to wear sunglasses even after his cataract surgery. Was this intended as a comment on the blindness, or willful oversight, of those complicit in systemic exploitation?

BSP: Bade Durga’s constant wearing of glasses symbolizes his perspective, which Chhoto Durga has always scorned. That’s why, in the end, when Chhoto Durga sees the glasses on his way back from the forest, he crushes them under his feet. He wants to destroy that perspective. The idea is simple — you can kill a person, but how do you kill their way of seeing the world? That’s why, in the end, Chhota Durga tries to release all his suffocation by stomping on the glasses and screaming.

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DS: Bhediya Dhasaan begins and ends with Chhota and his young son Rahul, whose lives are marked by profound upheaval. In the closing scene, when Rahul questions his father about the compensation check, were you alluding to a deeper loss of innocence?

BSP: You could say it’s about Rahul losing his innocence. At Rahul’s age (11 years), the things children see or hear while living within society, at home or with friends start becoming a part of their thoughts. I mean, at this age, children begin to learn how to understand things, and the foundation of their thinking starts to take deeper root around this time.

The reason for starting the story with Chhota Durga and Rahul was to introduce a new idea into the village. What remains to be seen is how far the clash of three generations’ perspectives — from Bada Durga to Chhota Durga, and now Rahul — is represented. Only then will the title of the film take on its significance.

That’s why Chhota Durga, who wants to take his child away with a new ideology, ends up falling into the same herd mentality himself. He believes he will break free from it all, but he cannot. And in the end, Rahul, having witnessed everything, is shown standing in the same place where everyone else is.

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DS: What were the creative and logistical challenges of filming in Mukteshwar, and how did the location itself influence the film’s atmosphere?

BSP: We shot in a village near Mukteshwar in Nainital. The biggest challenge was that, being far from the city, it was difficult to source essential shooting equipment easily.

The second challenge was the lack of proper roads. We often had to walk long distances, climbing up and down steep slopes with heavy gear. It took almost an hour to carry equipment and crew to Bada Durga’s house, and everything — including [the] camera, lights, etc. — had to be taken on foot. We were shooting on a Sony Venice, a large and heavy camera, so after night shoots, the camera attendants sometimes refused to carry it back to base, fearing it might fall or get damaged in the dark.

The third major challenge was the tigers and leopards that frequently roamed the area. Since we shot in November, the early winter mornings and late nights were especially risky, and the crew always moved in groups. One evening, as we were packing up near the forest just before dark, the crew actually heard a tiger growl from inside the woods.

Winter nights were freezing, especially during night shoots. One day, while filming a roadside dhaba (eatery) scene, the cold was so intense that the crew huddled together, making it difficult to continue working. Crowd scenes were also hard to manage since it wasn’t easy to gather people in the village.

But beyond all these challenges, we also saw this shoot as a small step toward creating a filmmaking culture in Uttarakhand, where such an atmosphere doesn’t yet exist.

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DS: The score employs an unusual blend of instruments. Some of them were indigenous to the region, and others are unconventional. How did the Himalayan landscape and its cultural resonance guide your sonic palette?

BSP: I didn’t want conventional background music for the film. I felt it should reflect the region and its culture. That’s why I looked for a musician who deeply understood the music of the hills and found Tejaswi Lohumi, who is based in Shimla.

For the theme, I insisted on using a special hand drum called the Happy Drum. Tejaswi found it challenging since its sound is usually soft and meditative, but I wanted an intense melody created solely with it.

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DS: The casting feels unerringly authentic, grounding the drama in lived experience. How did you approach casting to achieve this level of realism?

BSP: I handled the film’s casting myself, which took place on three levels. First, there were professionals from the film industry, like Chhota Durga (Yatendra Bahuguna) and Kalyan (Mahesh Saini). Second, [there were] actors connected with theatre or acting in Uttarakhand, including DFO (Raghav Sharma), SDO (Aakash Negi), Pradhan (Madan Mehra), Veeru (Dhruv Tamta) and Teacher (Swati Nayal). Third, [there were] local villagers from Mukteshwar with no prior acting experience. I stayed in the village for three months before the shoot and conducted workshops with them, including Rahul (Arman Khan), Dheeru (Rajendra Singh), Mudda (Mohan Ram), Khoonta (Deepak Malda) and others.

The toughest part was casting Rahul. I visited 22 government schools in the area, speaking with children, sometimes receiving support from teachers, and at times being turned away. To prepare him, I travelled 9 kilometers daily to his house for a month, holding two or three-hour workshops every evening.

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DS: Following Bhediya Dhasaan’s festival run, what trajectory do you envision for the film, both in terms of audience reach and cultural impact?

BSP: By the end of this year, I want the film to be screened at a few more festivals. After that, I’m hoping to bring it to an OTT platform. If there’s support for a theatrical release, I’m open to that as well. Beyond that, my goal is to reach the widest possible audience. I also want to organize screenings across the hills to promote cinema in the region and inspire people to create bold content.

Dipankar Sarkar (@Dipankar_Tezpur) is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic based in India. As a freelancer, he regularly contributes to various Indian publications on cinema-related topics.

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