Vikas Urs, the cinematographer of Rohan Kanawade’s award-winning film, discusses his creative decisions and choices.
Rohan Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) will be out in Indian cinemas after a months-long run in the international film festival circuit. Sabar Bonda was premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic award. The Marathi movie will be released on September 19 by Rana Daggubati’s company Spirit Media.
Kanawade’s feature debut is a gay romance set in rural Maharashtra. Following his father’s death, Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) accompanies his mother (Jayshri Jagtap) to his ancestral village to observe the traditional mourning period. Anand’s liaison with his neighbour Balya (Suraaj Suman) unfolds discreetly, under the noses of family members.
Sabar Bonda is a carefully constructed chronicle of a love as taboo as it is thrilling. Kanawade and cinematographer Vikas Urs use the 1.66:1 aspect ratio throughout to depict the growing physical and emotional bond between the men. In a previous interview, Kanawade had said, “I told Vikas that the film needed to look ultra-simplistic and real – like life unfolding in front of the camera.”
Vikas Urs’s credits include Natesh Hegde’s Pedro (2021) and Vagachipani (2025), Jaishankar Aryar’s Shivamma (2022) and Abhijit Mazumdar’s Body (2024). A Film and Television Institute of India alum, Urs was deeply drawn to the autobiographical elements in Sabar Bonda – the film is inspired by the director’s own experience of his father’s demise.
In an interview, 40-year-old Urs spoke to Scroll about shaping Sabar Bonda’s themes and emotional impact through his cinematography. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Going into the Sabar Bonda shoot, what were your early thoughts?
When Rohan sent me the script, the first thing that excited me was that it reveals him. I had not read a script or seen a film in the recent past where this had happened.
Usually, filmmakers want to hide behind their films – either through the craft or the very idea. With Rohan, I saw a lot of transparency. Nobody could have made this film apart from him.
Rohan had spent a lot of time evolving the script. He had spent close to five years developing the film. Because it was also his first film, his ideas needed to be translated – the movement from the written form or the imagination to a cinematic form, an optical image.
Was the 1.66:1 aspect ratio decided at the outset itself? What are your thoughts on this method of framing a narrative?
I was trained on [celluloid] film. I had shot Natesh’s Vagachipani on 16mm celluloid in the 1.66 aspect ratio before Sabar Bonda.
1.66 was the standard widescreen aspect ratio used during the New Wave that started in the 1960s in Europe. The New Wave movements across Europe rejected both the 2.39:1 of the American widescreen and 1.33, which became a television format. The New Wave films were largely low budget and often shot on 16mm, so they kind of arrived at 1.66 as their aspect ratio.
Sabar Bonda was shot in the same aspect ratio, but on digital. In today’s digital projection, you wouldn’t notice much of a difference between 1.
