Cannes 2026: Meet FTII’s Mehar Malhotra, whose Punjabi short is India’s only film in competition

On immoderate days, she feels low, with zero energy, and takes longer to bash elemental tasks. On different days, she’s energetic, makes a batch of impulsive decisions, and is chasing the adjacent large project. Recently diagnosed arsenic neurodivergent, an upbeat Mehar Malhotra, 26, who calls herself “neurospicy” instead, says filmmaking is her therapy. On the set, she isn’t impulsive. The process of creating gives her the dopamine boost she seeks connected astir days.

One among the 14 live-action and 5 animated films, chosen from a excavation of 2,750 planetary submissions, astatine La Cinef schoolhouse films’ competition, the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) graduate’s 24-minute Punjabi abbreviated film Parchaave Massiah Raatan De (Shadows of the Moonless Nights) is the lone Indian movie to beryllium selected successful contention astatine the 2026 Cannes Film Festival (May 12-23). The 4K restored John Abraham’s Amma Ariyan (1975) screens successful Cannes Classics.

There is an unsaid pressure. After the past wins of its students Ashmita Guha-Neogi (CatDog, 2020) and Chidananda S. Naik (Sunflowers were the First Ones to Know, 2024) astatine La Cinef, tin FTII present a three-peat feat this clip too? “There’s pressure, but I ne'er expected this to happen. The enactment is already a triumph for me. I person ne'er been bothered astir outcomes successful my life,” says Malhotra, who studied astatine Delhi’s Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies earlier going to FTII, Pune successful 2020, and past to Bombay for stints astatine an advertisement steadfast and arsenic an adjunct manager connected Sudhanshu Saria’s Sanaa (2022).

The value of un-rest

The archetypal rubric of the movie was going to beryllium conscionable Massiah, which successful Punjabi means amavasya (moonless night). This is the communicative of an impecunious, displaced household from Punjab surviving successful municipality Pune. Rajan (Prayrak Mehta, of Black Warrant, Kohhra fame) lives with his sister’s household and pulls nighttime shifts arsenic a mill worker. The mornings are noisy; helium tin hardly support his eyes open, but is tasked with chores similar dropping his niece to school. He has conscionable 1 desire, 1 that’s unavailable to him: a bully night’s rest.

To constitute her film, Malhotra dipped into idiosyncratic history. She recalls her maasi (maternal aunt), who lived with them and pulled nighttime shifts astatine a telephone centre. “She utilized to beryllium truthful irritated successful the mornings due to the fact that it is simply a loud, noisy Punjabi household, and I had to spell to school, Papa would get acceptable for office. Even if she wanted to sleep, she couldn’t. She was ever slumber deprived and had breakdowns. I felt the aforesaid successful Mumbai initially. I had a precise noisy roommate successful my PG, and 1 day, I went and slept connected the stairs of my building. When I woke up, my bag, everything was gone. I called my parent and kept crying that I privation to sleep,” she says.

Sleep is simply a cosmopolitan thing. In her film, she shows however slumber is simply a luxury successful a capitalist society, unavailable to the moving class. The archetypal representation for the movie that came to Malhotra was of the mill idiosyncratic who works nighttime shifts and is incapable to sleep. Of a idiosyncratic astatine night, wandering the metropolis and watching radical slumber successful pockets nether the moonlit sky, crawling into immoderate is nigh, successful the underpasses and nether the bridges, thoroughfare vendors connected their ain cart, watchmen successful their chairs, etc., to spot radical drawback a nap portion himself being successful a authorities of unrest. This montage is her favourite country from the film.

From Martin Scorsese to The Safdie brothers and Coen brothers, filmmakers person explored the inability to sleep, owing to either insomnia oregon work/ responsibilities oregon circumstances. In Malhotra’s short, Rajan isn’t an insomniac, helium is “chasing sleep”. Malhotra describes however she began exploring much themes astir it. “The familial tensions and attraction of the moving class. The socio-economic facet of however this displaced household lives successful a small, cramped household, successful a spot which is truthful culturally and linguistically different. The deficiency of privateness successful their ain home. And adjacent if it’s a loving family, however the cracks tin widen due to the fact that of this idiosyncratic doing the nighttime displacement [and drinking alcohol]. I wanted Rajan to beryllium a quality who has nary release, remainder oregon flight from his situation. It’s conscionable an illusion of escape, of choice.”

Mentor Ganesh Gaikwad, astatine FTII, helped trimmed the agelong draught of the film’s script. In a 4-minute-long azygous take, helium suggested to support the absorption connected conscionable 2 characters Rajan and his chap mill mate Kedar bhau sharing a drink, alternatively of showing a batch of workers poking amusive astatine Rajan. That could person been a small excessively melodramatic and each implicit the place. “A singular quality volition present much intimacy, and a idiosyncratic moment. And, 1 gets a much intimate glimpse of different quality successful the factory, too Rajan, alternatively of generalising,” Gaikwad told her.

Keeping it real

Having said that, this is not her reality. “I ever spell done that dilemma,” Malhotra says, “I recognize the privilege that I travel from erstwhile penning stories which are not my lived experiences. Even though slumber deprivation is universal, Rajan’s acquisition is truthful antithetic from mine. There is ever a fearfulness of putting myself connected a pedestal and past looking down connected my ain characters arsenic idiosyncratic who are victims and request help. I americium ever alert that I should not bash that. Besides, if you bash it, your camera and your publication volition amusement that, it volition bespeak successful the frame, successful the mode you presumption your camera, and whether it is looking down astatine the characters.” In this film, the camera is astatine their oculus level.

The persistent representation of deadpan exhaustion the young histrion (Prayrak arsenic Rajan) elicits haunts you overmuch aft the movie has ended. Cinematographer Digannt Surti utilized Sony Venice 2 camera but wanted a “film effect”. The camera gives precise crisp images, and the manager wanted a small softness, truthful they utilized precocious velocity lenses, to springiness anamorphic images. The visuals are not symmetrical, sometimes determination is not overmuch headroom. “I emotion imperfect images successful cinema, due to the fact that that intimately mimics beingness for me. Then, the soundscape: the whistling is wounded upon insult for it makes him privation to drift into slumber but helium can’t. And the convulsive waves crashing connected the rocks, expressing the unrest Rajan feels within, nary scenery extracurricular tin hole that.”

Writing the dependable into the publication was important for Malhotra. They kept going backmost to Lucrecia Martel film The Swamp (2001). “There are truthful galore off-screen sounds that we perceive successful that movie which are not portion of the frame, but it builds the ambiance and adds a spot of mystery, it’s not ever indispensable to really perceive immoderate is successful the frame, particularly successful a state similar India, there’s sound everywhere. We fto beingness travel in. Lucrecia has a vital, beauteous process of penning the soundscape first, and truthful we wrote the soundscape (sounds of clanking utensils, etc.) with the script,” she adds.

Making her movie successful Punjabi was natural. “In FTII, we’ve ever been taught to find our ain dependable and to spell backmost to our roots. I’m from Delhi and my parent comes from Ludhiana successful Punjab,” she says. A teacher told her to larn however to work and constitute successful Gurmukhi and to spell research my mother’s autochthonal place. She is determined to marque a longer, feature-length movie successful the Punjabi language. “I find the connection precise affectional and sweet. And, taking inspiration from Gurvinder [Singh] sir, instrumentality this connection to archer stories which correspond the world of Punjab, oregon of characters from Punjab. That’s precise powerful,” she quips.

tanushree.ghosh@thehindu.co.in