'Sabar Bonda' Director Rohan Kanawade On Crafting Humble Yet Unforgettable Stories

Rohan Kanawade’s journey into cinema is the stuff of films itself. It began in 2007 with an improvised shoot on a colleague’s low-resolution phone camera, edited on a clunky computer. Now, his filmmaking has since grown to redefine how queer lives are represented on screen.

With no formal training, Kanawade relied on the support of friends, borrowed devices, and his own relentless persistence to make films after long days as an interior designer. His father’s encouraging words, "Do it honestly and passionately," gave him the courage to follow that path.

Kanawade's recent film, Sabar Bonda, is the very fruit of this honesty and passion. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival 2024 and winning the Grand Jury Prize, it has already carved a place on the global stage while staying deeply rooted in Kanawade’s personal experiences.

As the film recently hit the big screen in India, the Mumbai-based filmmaker spoke to SheThePeopleabout the realities that shaped its story, and his journey of creating cinema that celebrates human connection and reflects the everyday lived realities of queer people in India.

Rohan Kanawade in conversation with SheThePeople

Can you tell me about your beginnings in filmmaking and how your background and upbringing influenced this journey?

In the 10th standard, we had a story in our Marathi textbook, which was so cinematic that I saw the whole chapter as a film in my head. That inspired me to write. After school, I took up interior design but continued writing short stories. 

While working as an interior designer, one of my colleagues told me about a short filmmaking competition and encouraged me to make a film on one of my stories. I was rather sceptical. Although I had always been interested in film since childhood—my father used to take us to the cinema to watch movies—I never knew that I would ever make films.

But she was so persistent because she wanted to act in the film. So she kept pushing me, and finally another colleague said, "You guys can shoot the film on my mobile phone." This was 2007, and those mobiles had a 1.2-megapixel camera. We shot the film on that!

Then one of my school friends, who had a home PC, said, "I know how to use Windows Movie Maker; I can help you guys edit." So this is how friends came together, and we shot the film. 

But I could not finish the film because the computer used to crash every time we started editing! The competition got over before we could edit it, but the whole process of creating something was so interesting that I wanted to make another film.

So I borrowed another friend's phone, and in that second film, I asked my parents to act. It was a silent film. Somehow I finished that film, went to another friend's home, used his PC to edit the film, and finished it. All my friends and neighbours saw it and loved it. That encouragement kept me going.

Every time I came back from work, I used to spend time writing or shooting every day. My father noticed, and one day he told me, "It seems like you want to explore filmmaking, like you want to change your career. It's okay—you want to do it, but do it honestly and passionately." 

He really supported me, and I kept making films. That persistence was important. As I was making films, I was growing, and the storytelling kept getting better with each film. 

Finally, in 2013, one of my short films was selected at a festival, Kashish. That became my first-ever international film festival, where I also won an award. That gave me more encouragement, and I continued making short films.

What led to the making of Sabar Bonda?

After making four short films that travelled to festivals, I started writing this film in 2020. My main producer, Neeraj Churi, liked the script, so we started applying for labs and markets.

Thankfully, the labs and markets selected the script, and I got mentorship through them and could build the film's profile in the international circuit because I always wanted to build that profile even before we shot the film.

Then, I could meet sales agents, film festival programmers, international producers, and studios. Whenever I finished the film, I could quickly reach out to festivals or sales agents to have them come on board. We met good people at every step.

The vision for this film was very specific, and no one believed in it. Somehow, my main producer raised money—he had to mortgage his house because no one was giving us money. Two other friends came on board as producers, gave us some financing, and we shot the film. 

After shooting, we needed money for post-production. That's when Siddharth Meer and Naren Chandavarkar, who own their own postproduction facilities, came on board—they helped with colour grading and sound design. 

This is how people came on board at each step. People who believed in the film. Because of them, I could finish the film and reach the festivals. We had the premiere at Sundance and won the Grand Jury Prize. Now we're releasing the film in India. 

Sabar Bonda explores queer identity in a middle-class and rural setting, which I find different from the usual urban representation in mainstream media. Was this a conscious decision, and how did you approach this representation with nuance and sensitivity?

Specifically for this film, I got inspired by grieving my father in my ancestral village, where I had to face a lot of marriage pressure, and I was seeking escape.

That’s when I had this thought: What if I had a friend in this village? I would have just sneaked out and stayed away from this pressure. That thought gave me the idea for the film.

This part of grieving and growing up in Mumbai in a one-room house, I thought I could use that to craft this film. And exactly, most films with queer characters are situated in cities. Although in this film, the main character Anand is someone who’s grown up in the city, for this period in the film, he goes to the village.

The lower economic strata are what I used, which is also my background—I grew up in a slum, a one-room house. My mom still lives there—my parents, my father was a driver, my mom is a homemaker. I remember when I was in school, my father only earned ₹3,000 a month. So that was the economic status.

Yet, when I came out to my family, they accepted me immediately. All the traumatic coming-out stories I had heard, in my case, it was completely different. I kept thinking my parents, who are not that educated, would never understand. But they understood everything, and they accepted me. 

I thought this film would allow me to show the simplicity of acceptance, the simplicity of sexuality being a normal thing. We don’t see this simplicity in most films.

Why do we complicate these things in our films? I wanted to change the narrative in my film and normalise these stories. That’s why I wanted to depict these things.

Beyond relationships, how did you translate the personal experiences of self-exploration and acceptance into a visual language through your film?

So, actually, more than identity, I wanted to show these individuals as human beings. The problem is, in most queer films, we don’t show these characters as human. They’re always caught up in identity and acceptance. 

For me, it was important to show this character as a human being first. That’s how we normalise it. So in the film, it doesn’t revolve around identity; it revolves around human connection more than identity. 

As I said, acceptance in the film has already happened in the past. During the story’s timeline, there isn’t an acceptance happening; the parents have already accepted their son.

The film is about what happens after that, which is the reality. When you come out to your parents, sometimes they don’t want to share it with the outside world or relatives. So they try to keep it quiet.

When those things happen, how do you deal with them? When families come together, and the extended family keeps talking about marriage, how do you deal with it? Now that your parents know, how do they deal with those things?

The film is about all those things and about falling in love and finding someone when you least expect it. During this grieving period, the character finds a connection and love.

It's about those connections and the simplicity of love, not just with a partner, but also with parents. Even though the father isn’t there, you get to know him through discussion.

So in my personal life, I don't consider my sexuality my identity, and I wanted that reflected in the film. These characters are human beings first.

How did you explore the impacts of class and society on individual identity?

My own growing-up days in the slum, coming from lower economic strata. That’s why that came into the film. I wanted to show the positivity I experienced in this class. 

People keep saying you find acceptance only in rich families, in cities. That’s not true. I found acceptance in this class. My father was a driver, and my mom is illiterate. They accepted me.

When I was writing the script, I spoke to friends from rural areas and poor farming families. Some came out to their parents around the time I was writing, and their parents accepted them.

Acceptance doesn't come from class—it comes from people and their wisdom. Education doesn’t teach this. If it did, my friends with rich, highly educated parents would all be accepted, but some never got acceptance.

So class was important. I just wanted to stay true to things I experienced in my life. I felt a lived-in experience would make impactful storytelling—for me and the audience.

Large portions of India come from the lower economic strata, and many queer people are from that too. So it’s important to show that. To make a film grounded in our own soil, that feels Indian.

The film also touches on women's Intergenerational burdens of societal expectations, responsibility, and sacrifice through the lens of Anand's grandmother, mother, and sister-in-law. Were these patterns something you’ve observed in your own life or community, and how did that shape the way you told their stories?

Similarly to the previous question, yes, I did observe this. The character of Seema (sister-in-law) was inspired by my cousin’s wife. She's highly educated, but after marriage, she never worked as she handled the house and kids.

That was her choice, so I didn’t want to comment. I just wanted to show reality as it is and let people take what they want from the characters.

I wanted to portray these women as I’ve seen them, and thought it would be impactful. Not only I, but most of us have seen these characters around us.

That adds to the realism, which is what I wanted most. So yes, these women are around me, around all of us. I wanted to portray them as authentically as I could.

From your observation, how do you see the Indian cinema landscape encouraging more authentic and diverse storytelling? 

When you think about independent filmmakers, they are already exploring authentic, rooted, bold stories. Only now is the world waking up to it. We were always telling good stories, and I'm happy international festivals are selecting more Indian independent films and giving them platforms.

Through festivals, independent filmmakers get international launching platforms, which is great. Filmmakers don’t have the money to make films, and when they do, they don't have enough to promote or go to theatres. These are difficult things.

But through festivals, the journey becomes a little easier, and the world gets to know about your film. If it’s received well, you may get distribution. Thankfully, this month in India, many independent films are getting released theatrically, which is amazing. I hope it continues.

If your younger self could watch your films today, what do you hope they would learn about the power of storytelling, art, and self-expression?

I think you’ll get inspired the way I got inspired as a kid watching certain cinema—Jabbar Patel’s films, Satyajit Ray’s films—I always felt those films were so different. My dad used to take us to cinemas, mainly Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, but when I watched these other films, I was fascinated.

Those inspired me. I didn’t know as a kid I’d ever make films, but these films sparked something in me. So good stories will always do that. I hope someone gets inspired through Sabar Bonda. Good films can do that—really inspire people.