From Byron Bay to Bollywood

Byron Bay filmmaker Devendra Parmar is set to release Barber of Baadarpur, a film capturing authentic Indian village life, in Australia next year.

Parmar wrote, co-directed and co-produced the Australian-Indian art house film, which stars Miss India 2024 Nikita Porwal, with his Bollywood-based brother Sanjeev Rajsingh Parmar.

Set in India’s rural north in the 1980s and inspired by true events and characters, the movie was financed by film lovers from the Northern Rivers region and shot in India in 2023.

It premiered at the 2024 Stuttgart Indian Film Festival in Germany and is expected to be released in India and Australia in early 2025.

Parmar said he got the idea for the script during a regular coffee catch up with a friend, in which he would share stories from India.

“When I told him about village barbers doubling as matchmakers, he said it would be a great subject for a film,” he said.

The movie follows the story of barber Natthi as he sets out on a journey to check out the family of a girl who is a potential match for his client, the village chief’s son, and the challenges he overcomes with his wit and wisdom.

“We made the movie to capture authentic Indian village life,” Parmar said. “Almost all Indian movies now are set in the cities or small towns.

“Village life in India is changing rapidly, with fast-paced economic growth and influences of western culture. With the shrinking numbers of Indians still living in the villages, this culture will soon be lost, so our movie creates a visual archive.

“Very few Western tourists get to experience village culture while staying in cities, regional towns or rural places set up just for such visitors. Even the spiritual centres have been transformed to cater for foreigners. This is also becoming the case for most large city-dwelling Indians, who are losing contact with their roots in ancestral villages.

“We intend to make follow-up movies to archive thousands of years of culture before it has gone forever.”