A Punjabi arthouse drama set during the peak years of the pro-Khalistan movement has topped the Indian competition section, known as India Gold, at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. Gurvinder Singh’s Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction) is an elliptical narrative about the fear, anxiety and dread that swept through Punjab’s countryside during the militancy-affected 1980s. The National Film Development Corporation co-production, which features non-professional and local actors and a dog named Tommy, competed with a dozen other films, including Island City, G A Wanton Heart, Visaranai and Umrika.

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The winner in the India Gold category will get distribution, publicity and international sales support from Drishyam Films, the production company set up by Manish Mundhra. Drishyam, which has produced Aankhon Dekhi, Masaan, and X Past is Present, has committed to paying the handsome fee of Rs 50 lakhs to publicise the India Gold winner.

Chauthi Koot is based on two stories by Punjabi writer Waryam Singh Sandhu. One is about a diverse group of travellers on a train to Amritsar a few months after the desecration of the Golden Temple during Operation Blue Star. The other takes place many weeks before the Army stormed the shrine to flush out terrorists led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, and involves a farming family and their pet dog Tommy.

“Both the stories complement each other, they are talking about the same atmosphere and are set during the same time period,” said Singh, a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India. “One story is about the public space and the other one is about the home,” added Singh, who grew up in Delhi. “Both are about the fear of mistrust that pervaded every part of your life during those years.”

The movie is packed with several memorable faces that are framed by cinematographer Satya Rai in interesting ways – they are seen from a frontal position, in mid-close-ups, and in smooth tracking shots. The use of tracking shots is, in fact, a recurrent motif in Chauthi Koot, signalling that an unseen and immensely powerful force is propelling characters caught between the Army and militants towards an uncertain future. “It’s a beautiful way of creating space and a feeling all around the actors,” Singh said.

The 41-year-old filmmaker made his debut with Anhe Ghore Da Daan (Alms for a Blind Horse) in 2011. The film went on to win National Awards for direction and cinematography and best feature in Punjabi in 2011. Both films are set in Punjab and based on literature. Both have qualities of sparseness and mystery, and both feature an invisible force field that sucks in its characters.

“Choosing actors is like choosing colours,” said the 41-year-old filmmaker. “It’s about how you place one face against the other. For instance, the people sitting in the train compartment become an image of the diversity of unconnected people travelling together.”

One of Chauthi Koot’s key characters is Tommy, a Himalayan sheep dog with a red-hued coat and the intelligence of a human. “When you use a dog in a film, you have to adapt to the animal and not the other way round,” Singh pointed out. “Working with Tommy was like working with any non-actor – when we wanted him to bark, he wouldn’t, but when we got a street bitch or a hen and put it near the camera, he would come charging towards us.”

The second best film in the India Gold section was Shlok Sharma’s Haraamkhor, which traces the illicit affair between a married tuition teacher, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and his adolescent student, played by Shweta Tripathi. Haraamkhor’s win comes as a huge shot in the arm for producer Guneet Monga, and will ease the release of the controversial title.

The FTII’s proven ability to produce award-winning filmmakers was further boosted by the Special Grand Jury Prize for Mor Mann Ke Bharam, a beautifully shot experimental feature in Chhattisgarhi about a blocked writer and his relationships with his characters. The first feature has been directed by Heer Ganjawala, Abhishek Varma and Karma Takapa.

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The top award in the International Competition category went to Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul (Volcano,), a Guatemalan movie about a 17-year-old girl’s attempts to avoid an arranged marriage. The only Indian entry in the section, Raam Reddy’s Thithi, won the Jury Grand Prize. Reddy’s debut is an absurdist comedy set in rural Karnataka among the Gowda community. Written by Reddy and Eregowda, Thithi opens with the death of a foul-mouthed centenarian and goes on to trace the varying reactions of his son, grandson and great-grandson to the event. The old man’s son is a detached wanderer who couldn’t care less for the property he stands to inherit, the grandson is desperate to claim the land, while the great-grandson is eyeing the daughter of a nomadic shepherd family. Reddy uses a mix of professional and non-professional actors, many of whom are cheerfully irreverent and profane about matters big and small.

Jayaraj’s Ottal, which marries Anton Chekov’s short story Vanka with a social drama on child labour, won two awards: the Golden Gateway award for the best children’s feature, and the Yes Foundation-sponsored Film for Social Impact prize.