India’s Dharamshala Worldwide Movie Pageant will return to the Himalayan foothills for its 14th version, opening with Neeraj Ghaywan’s “Homebound” and shutting with Anuparna Roy’s Venice prizewinner “Songs of Forgotten Bushes.”
Operating from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 on the Tibetan Youngsters’s Village in Higher Dharamshala, DIFF has established itself as one in every of India’s premier showcases for impartial cinema, drawing world filmmakers and audiences to its non-competitive platform.
Ghaywan’s “Homebound,” tailored from a 2020 New York Instances article by Basharat Peer, follows two childhood buddies from a North Indian village who aspire to change into law enforcement officials. The movie, which debuted at Cannes, explores how mounting pressures pressure their friendship as they pursue respect and alternative.
The pageant continues its partnership with Sydney Movie Pageant, welcoming two Australian movies and their filmmakers: Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese’s queer sci-fi “Lesbian House Princess” and Gabrielle Brady’s “The Wolves All the time Come at Night time,” Australia’s Oscar submission.
Programming highlights embody Bhutan’s Oscar entry “I, The Music” by Dechen Roder; Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Cactus Pears”; Wealthy Peppiatt’s Irish-language “Kneecap“; and Raoul Peck’s documentary “Orwell 2+2=5.”
The lineup additionally options Spanish director Carla Simón’s “Romeria”; Hlynur Pálmason’s Cannes entry “The Love That Stays”; Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s “Chopping By Rocks”; Prabhash Chandra’s “Alaav”; Kunsang Kyirong’s “100 Sundown”; and Tannishtha Chatterjee’s Busan-debuting “Full Plate,” starring Kirti Kulhari and Sharib Hashmi.
The pageant will host a masterclass with acclaimed Indian filmmaker Kiran Rao.
Closing evening belongs to Anuparna Roy’s “Songs of Forgotten Bushes,” which received the Horizons award for greatest director on the Venice Movie Pageant earlier this 12 months. The Mumbai-set drama follows a migrant actor and intercourse employee who sublets her house to a call-center employee, forming a fragile bond.
Programming director Bina Paul has curated a lineup that features Andrey Tarkovsky’s son presenting the documentary “Andrey Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer” in individual, that includes uncommon archival footage of the legendary Russian filmmaker.
Dharamshala is greatest identified internationally because the seat of the Dalai Lama, who has been primarily based there since being exiled from Tibet in 1959. The pageant administrators Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam are filmmakers in their very own proper. Their chronicles of the Tibetan situation together with 2005’s “Dreaming Lhasa,” 2010’s “The Solar Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Battle for Freedom” and 2018’s “The Candy Requiem” have obtained appreciable pageant play, together with at Toronto and San Sebastian. The pair’s final enterprise, one of many shorts in Tibetan anthology movie “State of Statelessness,” premiered at Busan in 2024.
“We by no means got down to change into one of the crucial distinguished impartial festivals within the nation. We merely believed that significant cinema deserved a house within the mountains,” say Sarin and Sonam. “DIFF has grown organically over 14 years — not by means of flash or hype, however by means of the fervour of filmmakers, the belief of our audiences, and the group that returns 12 months after 12 months.”
DIFF stays intentionally non-competitive, prioritizing dialogue over awards. The pageant credit tech associate PictureTime’s inflatable digital theaters with bringing impartial cinema to the distant mountain location.
