Vishal Thakur

The new-age filmmakers have a unique way of presenting ideas and human emotions. Danish Renzu, a young filmmaker from Kashmir, too portrays the complexities of the human mind and that of society with dexterity.

Whether it is Neela, the main character of his first film Half Widow (2017), who is searching for her missing husband Khalid Hussain Baig in Kashmir Valley or Shaheen in the short film In Search of America Inshallah (2014), Jo arrives in Las Angeles to find her husband Ali Ilyas, the characters inhis films are an amalgam of emotions. 

Danish delves deep into his characters and puts across their emotions in simple words.

His film The Illegal received acclaim at several international film festivals and was released on the OTT platform Amazon Prime Video recently. Sooraj Sharma, who worked with actor Irrfan Khan in Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee's Oscar-winning film Life of Pi (2012) has played the lead role in it. Besides, Adil Hussain, Shweta Tripathi, Neelima Azim, Iqbal Theba also play roles in the movie.

This film is based on the story of a young man who dreams of prosperity on American soil; yet on reality check, he sees a glimpse of his own life's struggle there. The hero in the film is an Indian young man Hassan who goes to Los Angeles to learn filmmaking and gets stuck there. In one stroke, his dreams are shattered and he is unable to do anything he wants to. Soon, he realizes that he is not alone; there are many like him who have been waiting to return to their homeland for years. Some are never able to go back.

Danish Renzu

In fact, in the year 2006, Danish Renzu had moved to America from Srinagar to study engineering. But soon he began to understand the difference between the glare and the reality of the American dream. The difficulties he faced there inspired him to make the film The Illegal. Although the film received mixed responses from audiences, critics praised the script and direction of Danish.

In one of his interviews, he says that before moving to the USA he wasn’t aware of many difficulties that migrants have to face. He says, “There are indeed many people here who cannot return to their homeland because either they are living here illegally or they do not have the documents to get permission to travel.”

His experience as an expatriate had led to bonding between him and his house. Danish says, “I always carry my home in my heart whenever I go.”

At such a young age Danish Renzu's experience and achievements in the field of filmmaking in India and abroad can prove to be an inspiration for young and professional directors. 

Danish Renzu with a friend

The film The Illigal was awarded the Jury Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival (2019); he received the title of Best Director at the Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival in the year 2018 for Half Widow. Looking at the body of his work, it’s hard to believe that he had ventured into filmmaking just five-six years ago.

He depicts the anomalous geographical conditions, social complexities, tumultuous ground conditions, and scarcity of resources with finess.

His passion for cinema is also reflected in the way he chose films over the field of engineering while in the USA. He is quite optimistic about his future in cinema even though he is yet to become part of the professional Bollywood film industry. Danish says that Kashmir and his people are at the core of all his work. He is upbeat about his plans of including Kashmiris in his upcoming films. He also dreams of seeing a full-fledged film industry in Kashmir.

He takes this as his responsibility. Danish says. “In my film Half Widow, almost everyone - from writer to cameraman, light man- was all from Kashmir. They will continue to work with me in the coming days.”

Danish has set up his production company Renzu Films to give wings to his dream. He is planning to give preference to Kashmir-centric films. Although he knows it’s a difficult task yet, he feels with the right people, good stories, and delivering films to the audiences in a planned way, he can see the success.  This, perhaps, is also the reason why he shoots music videos in the background of Kashmir. Under his banner, he has also made a video of Kashmiri musician Irfan Bukhari. 

However, his focus at the moment is on his project, Pashmina, the proposed first big-budget Bollywood of his banner. The film stars Dulquer Salmaan, Farida Jalal and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Not only this, the lyrics of this film are from famous lyricist Gulzar, and the music is by Amit.