OTTplay At Berlinale 2026 | Rima Das' Not A Hero: Can Compassion Be Heroic?
Meenakshi Shedde reviews Rima Das' Not a Hero, which won the Crystal Bear Special Mention at the recently-concluded Berlin Film Festival.
Last Updated: 03.32 PM, Mar 06, 2026
This review is part of award-winning film critic, journalist and curator Meenakshi Shedde's dispatches from the 2026 Berlin Film Festival for OTTplay.
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TWO WOMEN FILMMAKERS from India’s North East emphatically catapulted Indian cinema — and specifically North East cinema — into the international firmament last month. Rima Das’ Not a Hero, in Assamese, won a Crystal Bear Special Mention at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival. A day later, Lakshmipriya Devi’s Boong, in Manipuri, became the first Indian film to win a BAFTA Award (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), in the Best Children’s and Family Film category. What’s more, Rima Das’ previous feature Village Rockstars 2, which also won the Kim JiSeok Award at the Busan Film Festival in 2024, and Devi’s Boong, are both scheduled to release in theatres on March 6, 2026. A theatrical release is a rare achievement for any independent Indian film, let alone Assamese and Manipuri films, underlining that language and culture are no barriers to an engaging story.
In Rima Das’ gentle coming-of-age drama, Not a Hero, city boy Mivan, 11, is forced to relocate to his aunt Pahi’s home in the family’s ancestral village in Assam, while his parents cope with a financial crisis. Initially bored and resentful, he shuts out the village by plugging into his headphones and playing video games on his phone. His relationship with Pahi is estranged, a coldness inherited from his father’s relationship with her. Following his tantrum demanding pasta instead of rice, he slowly warms up to the rhythms of rural life, and makes friends at school. He shows off his English and his class, but is soon humbled, as he is not as fluent in Assamese as the local kids. As he connects with nature and animals, the ice thaws between him and Pahi as well. The film explores how heroism is not in the grand gesture, defeating villains or having superpowers, but also in being vulnerable and having compassion for others. We also see how while his parents fob him off on his aunt, she must fend for herself alone, underlining gender disparities.
Not a Hero is Das’ third feature at the Berlinale, winning the Crystal Bear Special Mention in the Generation Kplus for children and adults in 2026, after her Bulbul Can Sing won a Special Mention of the International Jury of Generation 14plus (for teenagers and adults) Berlinale, 2019, and her Village Rockstars 2 was in Generation 14plus, 2025. In addition, Das was on the International Jury of the Generation 14plus in 2020, so this is her fourth official outing here. Das’ direction is confident in a world she knows — most of her films are shot with family members and neighbours (mostly non-actors) — in her village, Chhaygaon in Assam. Bhuman Bhargav Das, who plays the lead, is superb: he is Das’ nephew, while Sukanya Boruah, who plays Pahi, is a professional actor. Das’ screenplay is more interested in moments of emotional resonance, than a narrative plot structure, which is reflected in the cinematography and editing. Das has mostly been a one-woman army, being writer, director, producer, cinematographer, production designer, editor and a casting director on most of her previous films. This time, she has Aditya Varma do the cinematography — and he does a fine job, with a gentle pace, and mostly a fixed camera.
It is astonishing how, based between Mumbai and her home village of Chhaygaon, in Kamrup district, Assam, an hour from Guwahati, she mainly creates worlds set in her little village, yet she has some top international producers producing her films, that most Bollywoodwallahs can only fantasise about. Village Rockstars 2 was co-produced by Fran Borgia of Akanga Film Asia, Singapore, and Yao Chen and Cao Yu’s Bad Rabbit Pictures, China, along with her mother Jaya Das. Borgia has co-produced Not a Hero as well. Noted Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke produced the anthology Neighbours with directors from BRICS nations, for which she directed the short For Each Other; and she also directed a segment in My Melbourne, the Australian anthology feature backed by Mitu Lange, made with fellow directors Imtiaz Ali, Kabir Khan and Onir. On Not a Hero, Das pulls multiple duties — director, writer, editor, casting director and producer — with Mallika Das as costume designer. But the double-bill release on March 6 will tell us how much we as an audience are ready to pay to see good cinema in theatres.
Quick note here to mention how the Berlin Film Festival is one of the few A-list festivals to feature children’s and teenagers’ films, as part of the official selection, via the Generation section, as the festival believes in investing in children as the audience of tomorrow. Schools bring their students to watch films with the public, and the Crystal Bear, the highest award in the section, is given by a Children’s Jury of the Generation Kplus, with a separate International Jury award given by an adult jury. British Pakistani filmmaker Seemab Gul’s Ghost School, that was also in the Generation Kplus, this year, was impressed by the response of the children, and the language access: the film, exposing corruption in schools in Pakistan, made in Urdu, had three levels of access; there are English subtitles on the film, but as it is challenging for children to read subtitles, they additionally dub the film into German for the local audience, and meanwhile you can hear the original sound track (Urdu) on headphones, over the German dub voiceover resonating in the hall. Just amazing.
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Meenakshi Shedde (Facebook | Instagram) is a National Award-winning film critic, journalist, curator and global influencer, shaping opinions on South Asian cinema worldwide since 40 years, based in Mumbai. She has been curator/programmer to TIFF Toronto, Berlin and film festivals worldwide. She has been jury member of 25 film festivals, such as Cannes, Berlin and Venice, including the jury of Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique (Critics’ Week) 2023, and was also Golden Globes international voter.