The New Scene Stealers

Rohan Kanawade’s father was a chauffeur in Mumbai who loved films but never had enough money to indulge himself. But whenever possible he would take his family to the movies. “The first film I remember watching was Jurassic Park,” says the director of the Sundance winning, Marathi gay romance, Sabar Bonda. “It blew my mind with its sound design and visual effects.” Around the same time, Anoop Lokkur was growing up in Bengaluru in a middle-class home where almost every weekend was spent watching movies. He crafts a scene around one such trip to the theatre in the semi-autobiographical Kannada film, Don’t Tell Mother, which is premiering at the Busan International Film Festival. 

Having grown up on the best of global cinema, yet rooted to their own lives, a new breed of independent filmmakers has found their voice and vision. Aided by established filmmakers, they are bringing their festival-hopping, award-winning films back home, to be released theatrically. Releasing in theatres this month, Sabar Bonda has been picked up for distribution by Rana Daggubati’s Spirit Media, which also powered the India release of Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light. Humans in the Loop, a stunning film from Aranya Sahay about an AI unit in Jharkhand is being pushed by Kiran Rao, and documentary filmmaker Biju Toppo. It was released in theatres last week. And Anuparna Roy’s Songs of Forgotten Trees about two migrant women in Mumbai, which won the Orizzonti Prize for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival last week, was backed by Anurag Kashyap. 

It follows the successful streaming release of Kabir Tejpal’s Stolen which had the all-star support of Rao, Nikkhil Advani, Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. “It was the least we could do,” says Motwane, adding that they all used their networks to support good cinema. Says Rao: “Many films do not get theatrical distribution for a variety of reasons. For Ship of Theseus (2012), for example, I came on board as presenter to secure distribution using my leverage and experience. Similarly for a small film like Stolen or Humans in the Loop to create audience awareness for a theatrical release,
or even to get acquired by OTT, having an established name as executive producer helps. It becomes an endorsement that helps bring in both distributors and audiences.”

She looks for films that are artistic while being socially/politically/culturally relevant, addressing themes she feels are important. And indeed, indie filmmakers are pushing the envelope when it comes to ideas. Jitank Singh Gurjar’s In Search of the Sky is in Braj and rooted to his culture. The film tells the story of a couple who go to the Maha Kumbh with their mentally unstable son. Says Gurjar: “I grew up in Dabra, a town near my village in Madhya Pradesh, and have always been deeply connected to my roots. Our family still earns from farming, and my father continues to work the fields. In our village, there’s a centuries-old temple beside the river that feels incredibly spiritual and connected to infinite energy. Studying in BSF schools taught me both creativity and discipline, while my bachelor’s in psychology in Gwalior has been invaluable in understanding characters and shaping stories that feel authentic and lived-in.”

Roy’s film, on migrant women, had been inspired by the story of her grandmother who was a child bride, and her relationship with her step daughter who was her age. “I saw how they ran their family without a man, when my grandfather died. My aunt was the provider and my grandmother became the receiver. I just added a romantic angle to it,” says Roy, who was surprised at the cross-border appeal of the film and the standing ovation it got at Venice. 

 Kanawade also shot in an environment he knew well, his uncle’s village, Kharshinde, in Maharashtra. Much of what happens to the young man in Sabar Bonda happened to him after his father died, the rituals, the questioning of his single status, and the grieving. Kanawade’s vision was always very particular—he would make a film with no background music, a static camera, and no songs. “I wanted to take the film to an international platform,” he says. He aimed for Cannes, Venice, Berlin or Sundance. Not only did the self-taught filmmaker manage to get his movie to Sundance but he also won the Grand Jury Prize under World Cinema Dramatic. It hasn’t been easy for him, pitching the film to Indian script labs, the Biennale College Cinema and the London Film Market. But he has harnessed the best technical support, from Naren Chandavarkar who worked on his sound design to Sidharth Meer, his supervising colourist, who also has an extensive network of influential filmmakers. “I was blown away by the film,” says Advani, who helms the Sumitra Gupta Foundation for The Arts, which he started in his late mother-in-law’s memory. “Each film is different,” he says. “Some need finance, some just a push with publicity support.” 

It saves several films from languishing unseen. Take the case of Raam Reddy’s The Fable, renamed Jugnuma for India. Set in 1989, on a lush Himalayan orchard in northeastern India, Reddy’s second feature is as much a fairy tale and a horror story, where the forest suddenly catches fire. The film, shot in 16 mm, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2024, but is only now seeing a theatrical release with a push from Kashyap and Guneet Monga as executive producers. The warm father in The Fable, who transforms into a darker discriminatory estate owner is played by Manoj Bajpayee, who takes flight in some extraordinary sequences.

But most indie films, featuring local stories and regional dialects, feature new actors. For In Search of The Sky, the lead actor Nikhil S Yadav was discovered by the producer Pooja Vishal Sharma, and Gurjar says he was mesmerised by his audition. Meghna Agarwal, who plays his mother, came through the audition process, while Raghvendra Bhadoriya, who played his father had previously been the lead in Gurjar’s last rural folklore film, Baasan. “We began with understanding the psychology and history of each character, conducted workshops, and helped the actors inhabit their roles fully, letting them become the characters themselves,” says Gurjar.

Indie movies either cannot afford stars or are not interested in waiting for their affirmation. For Don’t Tell Mother, Lokkur’s casting director, Anita Mithra, helped him cast most of the actors, but Siddarth Swaroop, who plays the young lead, was a lucky coincidence. “I was at Bangalore’s Ranga Shankara café with my editor, Pavan Bhat, discussing the script, when I noticed this boy running around, full of energy and life. I turned to Pavan and said, ‘That’s exactly the kind of kid I need for this role.’ I approached his mother and asked if he might like to act. She looked at him, and without hesitation, he simply nodded, ‘Yes!’”

 Lokkur adds, “I actually didn’t give the kids a script. Before each scene, I’d talk to them about what was happening and what they were meant to do, then let them perform it in their own way. From there, we’d make small adjustments. With the younger kid, Adi, portrayed by Anirudh, he was mostly just being himself in front of the camera, which made his performance feel very natural.”

Lokkur’s film recreates the middle-class Indian home of the 1990s, with its WWE cards, Jane Fonda aerobic videos, Michael Jackson songs on cassettes, and summer holiday trips in Maruti vans, remaining true to its roots. In Search of the Sky, Gurjar uses two folk forms, Kanhaiya, and Tambura Bhajan. Both are ancient traditions, and only the last generation of artists is still carrying it forward. “I truly believe cinema can become a medium to preserve such cultural heritage. I grew up listening to these forms of music, something I have never heard anywhere else, it is both special and deeply expressive of this place,” he adds.

It is the same in Nidhi Saxena’s Secret of a Mountain Serpent, which was screened at the Venice Film Festival, in which a young woman yearns to hear from her husband who is on the front lines of the Kargil War. There is a story that the villagers repeat about how a serpent waits for a woman to cross the river because centuries ago, she promised her child to it. While she is waiting on the cold nights, listening to dispatches from Kargil, she also develops feelings for a newcomer, an enigmatic Adil Hussain. Actors and producers Ali Fazal and Richa Chadha who put their weight behind Girls Will be Girls, are producing Saxena’s film. As the director says, “I used to live in the Ranikhet region during the Kargil war where the body of an army jawan would turn up almost on a daily basis. The women were left on their own and the men would only visit once or twice a year. I shot it there as I conceived the script there itself. I wanted to explore the desires that women carry silently — desires that may not break into escape, but pulse beneath the skin. Secret of a Mountain Serpent is a story that speaks not just to women but to anyone who has ever lived between duty and longing. It asks: Can you belong to someone, and still belong to yourself? Using nature, folklore, and emotion as storytelling tools, I have shaped a world in which desire itself becomes a mythic force — a serpent of transformation that can never be captured or silenced.”

Humans in the Loop has a similar local scale, with Sahay making the film based on an article funded by the Storiculture Impact Fellowship. It follows the story of a tribal woman, Nehma, played by Sonal Madhushankar, in Jharkhand who works as a data labeller in an AI unit working for an American company. Sahay’s film beautifully captures the contrast between what nature teaches us and what AI learns. It was first screened at MAMI in 2024, and since then has quietly gathered momentum through private screenings at cultural centres across the country, film festivals, and influential filmmaker endorsements. 

It is not enough though. Saxena says. “Even with my last film, Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman, I observed that we travelled extensively internationally with our film but back in India no one really knew anything. For visibility I connected with Richa and Ali and we made some calls and I asked them to come on board as executive producers.” 

As Motwane says, we all want to be entertained. “We want to laugh, cry, and be moved in a highly charged way. The indie spirited genre is very much alive. If it takes a few phone calls to make a film like Stolen, which was ready in 2023, be released on streaming, why not?”

Indeed, as audience tastes evolve, every little boy like Rohan Kanawade who borrowed his friends’ phones to make a film, or Anoop Lokkur who would take photos on every holiday with his Kodak camera, or every little girl like Nidhi Saxena who dreamt of whispering a message to the trees can share their stories with the world. 

And it can stop us in our tracks for a moment, to listen to the heartbeat of the rocks, watch the birds in the sky, or study the shape of insects like Nehma in Humans in the Loop.

Anoop LokkurAnuparna RoyAranya SahayDon't Tell MotherglobalisationHumans in the LoopIn Search of the SkyIndian cinemaIndie filmmakersJitank Singh GurjarlocalNidhi SaxenaSecret of a mountain serpentSongs of Forgotten Trees