Jitank Singh Gurjar’s debut feature, Vimukt (In Search of the Sky), is a moving exploration of poverty and its quiet impact on a destitute family of three. Set in a Braj-speaking village in West Uttar Pradesh, the film follows Jasrath (Raghvendra Bhadoriya), his wife Vidya (Meghna Agarwal) and their differently abled son, Naran (Nikhil S. Yadav), as they navigate hardship, societal cruelty and personal despair. Against the backdrop of the religious festival Kumbh Mela, Vimukt uncovers moments of grace in small gestures and the rhythms of everyday life. Gurjar’s careful direction renders a deeply nuanced depiction of resilience, faith and familial bonds, and without leaning on sentimentality or melodrama.

Vimukt premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival in the Centrepiece section and won the NETPAC Award. In this interview, Gurjar reflects on the genesis of his movie, its deep ties to the soil/spirit of rural India and how faith, poverty and resilience intertwine in his storytelling.

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Dipankar Sarkar: Vimukt is rooted in the enduring burden of poverty and its corrosive consequences, set against a social environment rife with cruelty and callousness. What personal and social observations drew you to this subject?

Jitank Singh Gurjar: The idea for Vimukt originated with Pooja Vishal Sharma. She conceived it after visiting several ashrams that house people with physical and mental disabilities. What struck her most was that such individuals also exist in the rural hinterlands, often living in precarious conditions. Around the time of the Kumbh Mela, she noticed a disturbing pattern. Families would sometimes abandon their differently abled relatives at the pilgrimage site, trusting that the devout crowds would feed them out of compassion, ensuring they would not die of hunger. Pooja had come across several such reports in the news.

For me, the story resonated deeply on a personal level. A senior member of my own family suffers from cognitive decline, and those experiences shaped my understanding of care, dignity and helplessness. Coming from a village myself, I’ve long observed its textures, the songs sung at dusk, the earth beneath the fields, the quiet resilience of those at the lower rungs of society who survive against impossible odds. All these fragments, both personal and observed, gradually found their way into the story Pooja and I developed together.

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DS: So, once you had Sharma’s story, how did you go about developing it into a film?

JSG: After hearing Pooja’s story, the next step was to root it in a specific place. What could be more fitting, I thought, than Gwalior, the landscape I come from and know most intimately. I began expanding on her idea, weaving in details from my own experience and imagination. Pooja’s story already had a strong emotional foundation, where a father and mother [are] rendered helpless by their differently abled son, a child untouched by the codes of social behavior. Much of the drama unfolds at the Kumbh Mela, where devotion and abandonment co-exist. For me, this contradiction between faith and cruelty, between human and humanity, became the emotional core of the film.

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DS: Themes of familial duty and sacrifice have long shaped Indian cinema. Through the lives of Jasrath, Vidya and Naran, what new dimensions were you hoping to explore in this narrative?

JSG: Themes of familial duty, sacrifice, faith and endurance aren’t unique to Indian cinema — they echo across world cinema because they arise from the contradictions of human emotion. What makes them resonate is their universality. The more intimately they connect, the deeper they move the viewer. For me, the film’s new dimension lay in situating this story within the Chambal region, an area long mythologized in Indian cinema through tales of dacoits. To tell, instead, a story of a poor family, where the parents struggling to care for their differently abled son felt like uncharted territory. In rural India, when poverty and disability intersect, faith often becomes the family’s final refuge. The challenge was to capture that fragile thread of hope within a setting so harsh and yet so human.

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DS: Much of Vimukt’s narrative lies in small gestures and quiet rituals, whether in the tragedy of daily life or in the presence of faith through prayers and bhajan/Kirtan. How did these moments help establish the milieu of the story?

JSG: For me, telling a story is like threading a garland, where each flower or pearl is drawn from the small, lived moments that make us who we are. A director’s task is to weave these fragments into something whole. Much of Vimukt emerged from the observations of our own childhoods in northern India — how families respond to hardship, how a scolded child seeks comfort on his mother’s lap, how the rhythms of faith through bhajans and kirtans echo through daily life. These sounds and gestures are inseparable from the land itself, from the animals, the fields, the trees that children climb in play. Such details shape both the tragedy and the quiet beauty of existence. They remind us that even in suffering, there is connection.

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DS: Vimukt interlaces devotion with the struggle for survival, positioning the Kumbh Mela as both a backdrop and turning point. Why was it important to situate the family’s journey within this space of faith and reckoning?

JSG: For someone living in poverty, daily survival is already a struggle. In that unending hardship, faith often becomes the only refuge; the belief that religion or divine grace might bring relief. Many are told that their suffering is the result of sins from a previous life, and that a ritual dip in the Ganga during the Kumbh can cleanse them of that burden. Every year, thousands gather there, hoping the sacred waters will wash away not only their sins, but also the weight of their existence. For me, it was essential to situate the story within this space. The family in Vimukt comes from a small village, and their faith in the Kumbh as a site of redemption feels both inevitable and tragic. The Kumbh thus carries a dual role in the film, spiritual and narrative — a place where belief and despair converge.

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DS: The cinematography evokes both the intimate textures of rural life and the vastness of the Kumbh. How did you and Shelly Sharma craft this visual language?

JSG: While making Vimukt, I realized that the rhythm of rural life across India remains remarkably steady, almost meditative, when contrasted with the chaos of urban spaces or the frenzy of the Kumbh Mela. Shelly and I decided to reflect this contrast through the camera’s movement and texture. In the village sequences, the camera remains still or moves minimally, allowing the stillness of that world to breathe. But as the family journeys to the Kumbh, the visuals grow restless. The camera becomes handheld, mirroring the confusion and energy of the pilgrimage. We also designed a visual transition. The village is rendered in muted tones, while the Kumbh unfolds in saturated colors, capturing both its spiritual intensity and sensory overload. Shelly executed this design beautifully.

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DS: Vimukt’s score is restrained yet emotionally weighty. In collaboration with Manish Kumar, what guided your choices on when music should underscore the narrative and when silence should prevail?

JSG: Manish Kumar has been my mentor and collaborator for nearly 15 years. I’ve learned everything I know about music from him. He has composed for all my previous films and documentaries. Over time, we’ve developed an intuitive rhythm of working together. Manish has an extraordinary sensitivity to emotion. He knows exactly when a scene needs musical elevation and when silence should carry the weight. He usually creates the first draft of the score, and then we refine it together until it feels inseparable from the film’s texture. The credit for the music, in many ways, belongs to him.

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DS: Nikhil Yadav’s performance as Naran feels strikingly authentic. How did you work with him to achieve this effortless portrayal?

JSG: This was my first time working with Nikhil, and I must say, he’s an exceptional actor. Initially, I had someone else in mind for the role. But after his audition, I knew Nikhil was the right choice, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions for the film. We began by exploring the psychological nuances of a differently abled person — someone who struggles with emotional adaptability and tends to remain in one state of feeling for long stretches. Together, we built the character’s backstory and conducted workshops with Nikhil and the rest of the team. He brought his own improvisations to the process, and the result was a performance marked by honesty and restraint. Despite the limitations of budget and time, Nikhil carried the film with remarkable commitment.

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DS: Vimukt had its world premiere at TIFF and won the NETPAC Award. What impact did receiving this recognition have on you and the film’s journey?

JSG: Neither my team nor I ever imagined that Vimukt would be selected for Toronto, let alone as the Centrepiece film. When we arrived there and saw the range of remarkable films being showcased, simply being part of that lineup felt like an achievement. Winning the award was surreal, and we were on cloud nine. For all of us, it reaffirmed our belief in making honest, meaningful cinema. It also brought a renewed sense of responsibility and motivation to ensure the film reaches more people.

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DS: What kinds of stories or themes do you feel drawn toward exploring next?

JSG: My previous non-feature, Baasan (2023), was rooted in rural folklore, while Vimukt explores psychological distress and helplessness, with faith as a quiet undercurrent. My next film turns toward themes like domestic violence and substance abuse. I’m drawn to stories that probe human contradictions, and how circumstances push people toward impossible choices. For me, humanity is defined by its constant state of struggle, and I want my films to hold that struggle in all its emotional complexity.

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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