In Varun Chopra’s Oscar-contending documentary quick Holy Cowboys, the director provides a peek right into a aspect of India’s societal construction on how the cow, a sacred and holy animal to the bulk Hindu inhabitants, is being protected against slaughter by a rising group of Hindu nationalists. Winner of the Grand Jury prize on the 2022 DOC NYC, Holy Cowboys introduces viewers to the world of cow vigilantism by way of the eyes of a Hindu teen and his pals from a small city, Vapi, within the state of Gujarat. 

Chopra, a Sundance Ignite Fellow who relies within the U.S. and India, takes a hybrid method to make clear the rising Hindu nationalist affect on youth, and their justification to resort to violence on Muslims and different minorities to finish the consumption of beef, all within the identify of the cow. He additionally presents different prevalent points, equivalent to plastic air pollution, politics of beef commerce, and the pathetic circumstances of stray cattle that exposes the hypocrisy of the cow’s reverence in India.

Speaking to Deadline, Chopra sheds mild on his filmmaking fashion of making character arcs for his documentary and the way Holy Cowboys, Oscar-qualified within the shorts class, provides to movies by Indian expertise in recent times that look at social, financial, and environmental circumstances in India. 

DEADLINE: What drew you initially to the subject material of Holy Cowboys and what had been the deciding elements so that you can finally make the documentary?

Varun Chopra: I grew up in India, so the story is private to me. I needed to grasp the place the private intersects the political on this debate. Cows have been a stand-in for one thing means bigger in Indian society for a really very long time. And in lots of components of India, [the cow] is taken into account sacred. So traditionally too, cows have been the divide between meat eaters and non-meat eaters. But for essentially the most half, again within the day, it additionally was a logo in opposition to the British Raj. The cow is likened to be this nourishing mom for lots of people in India however the fervor to guard these cows is a really, very new prevalence. And I needed to probe what the truth was. I needed to take a lens on how can I perceive this with out my very own sure bias and create a primer with my very own movie with out having it being like a reportage. 

There are superb filmmakers equivalent to Amit Madheshiya and Shirley Abraham – they made a movie for The Guardian referred to as The Hour of Lynching [about a Muslim dairy farmer who was killed by a Hindu mob]. So there have been lynching movies however I needed to current one thing that I knew about from my very own lens – form of like a hybrid movie, as a result of that’s what I’m interested by in my apply. And then that’s how this concept took place of a movie that charts the journey of younger youngsters who’re slowly and regularly dropping their innocence to radicalization. 

DEADLINE: You adopted a non-intrusive method to the movie and on the similar time dramatized parts of it. What was the thought behind incorporating these components within the movie?

VC: I needed to determine how I may inform a narrative and what actually a documentary might be. Because many of the occasions my work borrows closely from the likes of Asghar Farhadi, Abbas Kiarostami, Anurag Kashyap – all these filmmakers have an excellent grasp of blending fiction and nonfiction in some methods, or actors and non-actors. But it is a pure documentary and I needed to see how is it that I can craft a narrative and take the viewers on a journey utilizing this very cinematic formalism language the place there’s a personality on a journey, he’s a person on a mission after which he has hassle getting there. Me and my editor constructed this journey collectively the place we needed to make it possible for there was rhythm to the story. Oftentimes, I discover in brief documentaries, due to time [constraints], there isn’t essentially a personality arc. So you both see a profile of any person or the theme of one thing that’s occurring, however we by no means actually see a man-on-a-mission journey, except it’s a course of movie. And I believe for this movie, I needed that to be the case. And for my subsequent movies I consistently wish to try this as a result of that’s what pursuits me.

DEADLINE: What challenges did you face whereas making the movie?

VC: I believe the most important problem was to grasp how will we get the entry to this [cow vigilante] group? The state of the media in [India] is horrible. So the very first questions that folks ask relies utterly out of suspicion, like okay, you wish to be related with this particular person, or that particular person – who’re you, what are your political allegiances? It was a really tough territory to grasp. But I give props to my line producer, who had performed journalistic documentaries earlier than. And, after all, after we had been there [at the location in Vapi, Gujarat], clearly simply ensuring that the belief was established. This is the half the place the unobtrusive lens is available in as a result of I needed to listen to what they needed to say. But once more, the stability was to verify to not give a platform to hatred. I needed to insert my very own commentary – what do I really feel as a filmmaker right here? And I believe a number of the surrealist scenes, the issues with the textual content [on screen], bunch of edits and a few directorial components – that is the way it comes by way of…not simply placing a mic into their faces and letting them communicate no matter they needed to. But there have been situations the place we had been undoubtedly probably at risk. They needed to see what we had been filming…you go in and also you make it possible for your reminiscence card is at all times backed up, since you by no means know. 

DEADLINE: On one of many posters of the movie you’ve said how the docile cow has turn out to be “the most polarizing animal” in India. Can you elaborate on this?

VC: The polarization is that the cow is bang within the middle of the fault traces between meat eaters and non-meat eaters, or typically who may hurt the cows or who protects the cows. And it’s at all times the symbolic nature of issues the place you’re not outright saying we’re anti-Muslim or anti minority group. The cows turn out to be this fulcrum level – for my part – of the way it all started. And this isn’t within the movie – however one of many issues that they’re saying is, as a result of the hazard is a lot, persons are not transporting cows anymore. They [Hindu nationalists] would go and raid goats. A goat will not be an animal that’s thought of sacred essentially by anyone, however it’s identified that many slaughter homes and butcheries are owned by Muslims. So they simply wish to harm them. There’s a heavy loss to their enterprise, and that’s what they contemplate success. I quote the traces from the movie the place one of many vigilante group members says, “Instill fear. Fear is how you win.” And that’s the concern – you’re residing in our nation. This is a Hindu nation, and you’re second class. So there are actual reckonings available. Who will we wish to turn out to be as a rustic? We occupy this very attention-grabbing place on this planet the place we’re the most important democracy on this planet, so to talk. That’s what we’re dropping actively proper now, for my part. And the cow simply appears to be within the fulcrum of that democratic slipping. 

DEADLINE: What response have you ever needed to the movie in India given the sensitivity of the subject material?