Notes from Dharamshala International Film Festival | And 15 inspiring Indian movies to watch

One would deliberation Adil Hussain is simply a movie festival essential. Cinephiles venerate the actor, who brings a uncommon grace to his characters, some successful commercialized movie (Mukti Bodh, English Vinglish, Agent Vinod, Ishqiya) and autarkic productions (Nirvana Inn, Lorni — The Flaneur). In an off-white denim jacket, Hussain appears relaxed astatine the 14th Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), which helium calls “the champion successful the country”. He is delivering an acting masterclass and presenting his film, Secret of a Mountain Serpent, directed by Jaipur-based Nidhi Saxena, astatine the festival. Last year, however, 3 of Hussain’s films were not selected astatine DIFF. “That’s wherefore I emotion this festival — due to the fact that there’s nary nepotism,” helium says.

Curated by Bina Paul, DIFF is “different”, accidental filmmakers. The festival, which concluded connected November 2, is 1 wherever there’s “no reddish carpet”. Here, filmmakers renowned and undiscovered are some of adjacent standing. This variation had “60 young filmmakers... including Andrey A. Tarkovsky with his movie connected his begetter (Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky), A Cinema Prayer,” says Ritu Sarin, festival co-founder.

With large festivals successful the state kowtowing to the glitter of the movie industries, DIFF is 1 of those uncommon festivals known for its eclectic curation and primacy fixed to autarkic voices. It besides engages successful assemblage outreach, by holding escaped screenings astatine section schools, colleges, and prison.

No state for autarkic films 

Last week, Kanu Behl’s 2nd feature, Agra, released successful theatres (on November 14) but soon exhibitors began to contradict shows to the film, a psychosexual drama set successful a dysfunctional household harbouring a lodging dream.

Agra played successful the Director’s Fortnight astatine Cannes 2023, and has since been doing the rounds of movie festivals, some planetary and domestic. Behl, known for his acclaimed debut Titli (2015), says helium was initially promised astir 100 screens and 150 shows by distributors, but it dropped to 70 shows a time up of release. “Out of these lone 9 were PVR INOX, and the remainder were mostly successful faraway multiplexes that don’t spot our people audience,” says Behl successful an interview. Agra showed to a houseful assemblage astatine the 2023 Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, whose 2025 variation was cancelled. If festivals are cancelled and theatres trim shows, wherever volition the indie shaper go?

Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, whose Marathi movie Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) won the apical assemblage prize astatine Sundance Film Festival but ran lone concisely successful theatres present successful September, was besides astatine DIFF to beforehand his film. He says helium has been “getting invitation requests from antithetic parts of the state to amusement his [Jim Sarbh-backed] film”. Post-DIFF, he’s headed to the US for the film’s North American theatrical release. A necessity connected the roadworthy to Oscars. He says, “Independent cinema becomes autarkic due to the fact that nary 1 supports it.” Hussain suggests Indian schools should clasp bi-annual screenings of “good autarkic films, for much and much young radical to get educated successful watching analyzable films, to recognize quality life, which is analyzable and contradictory”.

Not galore tin question to festivals. Most Indian theatres and OTT platforms don’t spot beyond large stars and profits. Distribution, much than production, is simply a thorn successful the broadside of autarkic cinema, accidental filmmakers. Pan Nalin (Last Film Show/Chhello Show, India’s 2022 Oscar entry), told Variety mag successful an interview, that erstwhile budgeting autarkic films, his squad calculates zero returns from India owed to the challenging home marketplace conditions for indies.

In a bid to code this, manager Kiran Rao, during her speech astatine DIFF, announced that she’s moving connected an alternate organisation system. Kindling Kino, portion of her accumulation location Kindling Pictures, volition apt springiness indie filmmakers a level to showcase their films, ain the intelligence property, and stock successful the profits, if any.

Here’s a database of 15 striking Indian films from DIFF 2025, crossed 4 themes, successful nary peculiar order:

Of companions and homecoming

Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound

Neeraj Ghaywan’s sophomore diagnostic movie comes 10 years aft Masaan, which was his archetypal movie to spell to Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard competition. Homebound, backed by Karan Johar and Martin Scorsese, received a nine-minute lasting ovation astatine Cannes this twelvemonth and is India’s authoritative Oscar entry. It opened DIFF 2025. Friendship fuels this empathetic communicative of migration and the marginalised — starring Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor — a existent communicative inspired from writer Basharat Peer’s The New York Times pandemic essay.

Suhel Banerjee’s CycleMahesh

This stirring movie is simply a treble measure to Homebound. In CycleMahesh, astir a young migrant worker, nether duress during the COVID-19 lockdown, embarks connected an epic travel each the mode backmost location connected his cycle.

Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)

Told with grace, gravitas and patience, this Marathi autofiction wrests grief from representation and the tragic from queer narratives. It gives fleshed-out agrarian cheery characters, and puerility friends, a harmless abstraction for tender romance and a close to joy.

Tathagata Ghosh’s Aamar Comrade (My Comrade)

The top revolutionaries are driven by love, not hate. In this Bengali abbreviated film, a rebel’s forbidden (queer) emotion witnesses a tribal’s brushwood successful West Bengal’s Jungle Mahal.

Anurupa Roy’s Songs of Forgotten Trees

Quotidian municipality loneliness meets an intimate pistillate relationship successful a lower-middle-class migrant Mumbai flat successful Venice Film Festival victor Anurupa Roy’s neo-noir Songs of Forgotten Trees, which closed DIFF. It is simply a spiritual relative of Payal Kapadia’s Grand Prix victor All We Imagine arsenic Light (2024).

Connected by water

Yashasvi Juyal’s Rains Don’t Make Us Happy Anymore

Kill and The B***ds of Bollywood histrion Raghav Juyal’s younger member Yashasvi Juyal’s abbreviated documentary is simply a poetic, languid and melancholic communicative of forced migration told successful an epistolary structure. Memories narrate the improvement and displacement communicative of an Uttarakhandi tribal colony drowned by the Vyasi dam hydroproject reservoir.

Balaji Maheshwar’s Bhaavi (The Well)

Myth and folklore thrust Maheshwar’s Tamil documentary. The elders of Solaganai tribal colony effort to reconstruct an ancient, spiritual good to prevention their children from a parched future. This restoration is portion of Tiruvannamalai’s Public Well Revival Movement by the Cuckoo Movement for Children.

Mothers and sons

Aakash Chhabra’s Warm Shadows/ Nighiyaan Chhavan

Co-produced by Thanikachalam S.A.’s Barycenter Films, Chhabra’s idiosyncratic hybrid movie turns the regard inwards. Between parent Sheeba Chaddha and lad Lakshvir Saran is simply a concealed they indispensable guard. In present is simply a tendency for liberation and a locomotion to the sea. Familial relationships instrumentality centrestage successful his films, and are juxtaposed with the quality outside. Grandson Saran tending to his grandpa (Uday Chandra) successful Mintgumri/A Winter’s Elegy (2022). The acold bluish of Punjab wintertime contrasted by the earthy umber of grandpa’s sweater.   

Prabhash Chandra’s Alaav (Hearth and Home)

Next showing astatine International Film Festival of Kerala successful December, Alaav features a real-life genitor and child. A 60-something lad nurses a 90-something parent successful her twilight years. His classical euphony grooming centres and rescues him. The movie is the equivalent of a bonfire’s lukewarm hug connected a acold night.

A satellite shaped by patriacrhy

Lakshmipriya Devi’s Boong

Produced by Farhan Akhtar, this bittersweet Manipuri gem features a Kuki-Zo lad playing the Meitei lead. Layered, guiltless and funny, it is apt the past papers of Manipuri nine earlier the caller taste violence. Mother (Bala Hijam) and lad (Gugun Kipgen) await the father’s return, until the preteen lad travels to Myanmar.

Nidhi Saxena’s Secret of a Mountain Serpent  

If walls could speak, what stories would it not tell. Women’s loneliness is simply a leitmotif successful Saxena’s films. After her trapped-in-time-and-home mother-daughter saga Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman, her 2nd movie Secret of a Mountain Serpent, starring Adil Hussain, uses folklore to amusement desires of lonely wives abandoned by their husbands.

12. Tannishtha Chatterjee’s Full Plate

Actress Tannishtha Chatterjee’s directorial debut, starring Kriti Kulhari, is simply a far-from-bleak, utopian instrumentality connected home violence. A mediocre Muslim pistillate and an injured and jobless husband. The communicative is stale but served with caller intent. There’s a full batch of food, oregon the gendered enactment of cooking, nurturing and bringing up children that’s a woman’s lot.

Renuka Shahane’s Loop Line (Dhaavpatti)

Everyday misogyny, antheral entitlement and home subjugation are served acold successful Shahane’s Marathi animation. It is the archetypal Marathi animation successful the Oscars’ longlist. Like mother-like daughter, writer Shanta Gokhale’s girl Shahane is championing women’s stories successful newer ways.

Vipin Radhakrishnan’s Angammal

In defiance of her son’s wish, the widowed matriarch (Geetha Kailasam) of Angammal refuses to deterioration a blouse, a Western/ municipality imposition. The Malayalam director’s Tamil movie adapts Perumal Murugan’s abbreviated communicative Kodithuni.

Sivaranjini’s Victoria

Unlike men, women constitute women much subtly. Produced by the Kerala State Film Development Corporation, Victoria sees gender, caste, people and creed play retired successful the women-only abstraction of the quality parlour. The lone antheral present is simply a rooster — a value Victoria (Meenakshi Jayan) carries — with it comes chaos.

tanushree.ghosh@thehindu.co.in