As part of his MFA coursework at NYU's Graduate Film programme, emerging filmmaker Omi Zola Gupta was assigned to make a 16mm silent film in daylight exteriors. 'Champi', a dialogue-less 3-minute short film that captures the often elusive father-son relationship, is the result of this exercise in limitations.
Taking place over the course of an afternoon, the slice-of-life film follows an unnamed Shikh man and his son as they shut their shop for the day and head home. As the son struggles to pull the shutter down and carry the heavy bag, his stoic father silently takes over from him. As the two walk home, we see the man, perhaps, as his son does. Gupta hones in on the ordinary details — his kada, or ceremonial steel bangle worn by Sikh men as a marker of their faith, his salt-and-pepper beard, and his hair peeking from behind his neatly wrapped turban — to create visions of a tangible and intangible ethnic heritage he will, someday, pass on to his son.
Gupta's keen eye for detail, and his drive to represent parenthood and coming-of-age within minority cultures make 'Champi' a poignant portrait of masculinity — especially in the way said culture is passed down from father to son. We see this act of inheritance take place in a particular moment of tenderness. As they walk home, ostensibly through biting New York cold, the man puts down the heavy bag he has been carrying and warms his hands by rubbing his palms and blowing into them. His son mirrors his actions and does the same. Once warmed up, their homeward journey continues and they pass across a Gurdwara, a flower and sweets shop, and apartments with clothes air-drying on clotheslines outside.
It all comes together once they reach their home. As the son plays with a ball, kicking and bouncing it against the concrete, he watches through the clothes how his father sits at his grandmother's feet and lets her unwrap his turban and untangle the knots of his unshorn hair. 'Champi', the Hindi word for a head massage, gets its name from this decisive moment. A curtain lifts. A veil shifts. As the son looks on, his father's face changes into that of a child, a mirror image of his own. The son smiles. The years slip away. The father becomes the son — the man becomes the child.
Omi Zola Gupta is a writer and director born in London and raised in New Delhi. He is interested in a humanist cinema in which multiple belongings are offered a chance to exist and contend. Gupta is a Sundance Institute x Adobe Ignite Fellow 2023 and is currently pursuing an MFA at NYU's Graduate Film programme as a BAFTA Pigott Scholar.
Watch the film here:
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