Busan Prize Winner 'Birds in the Dark' to Close Dharamshala Film Festival

Shashank Walia's debut feature, "Birds in the Dark," will serve as the closing film for the 15th Dharamshala International Film Festival. The movie, which centers on a call center executive mistaken for a suspect by a police informer, will make its India premiere during the event. The festival takes place at the Tibetan Children's Village in Upper Dharamshala from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1.

Walia's film earned two awards at the Busan International Film Festival earlier this month. Its inclusion marks a high-profile addition to a lineup that organizers have expanded with several new announcements. Among the added titles is Mehrdad Oskouei's "A Fox Under a Pink Moon," a collaboration with Afghan artist Soraya Akhlaghi that depicts her efforts to reach her mother in Austria.

The program also includes Paromita Vohra's "Working Girls," which examines the labor performed by women across India. Yashasvi Juyal's "The Ink Stained Hand and The Missing Thumb" will have its South Asia premiere; the film is set at a lonely highway toll booth in northern India. Ridham Janve's "Hunter's Moon" is set in the Upper Dhauladhar range.

Short films in the lineup include the world premiere of Aastha Tiku's "Dreamboat." The section also features "Hudke ki Pyaang Pyaang" by Arun Fulara and "Damned" by Varun Grover. Rima Das' "Not a Hero" will open the festival with its South Asia premiere, as previously announced.

Other confirmed titles include Óliver Laxe's "Sirāt," Shaunak Sen's "Termite," and Gurvinder Singh's "Rehmat." "Termite" will have its Asia premiere, while "Rehmat" will have its India premiere. The full slate also lists Sara Dosa's "Time and Water," Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén's "Celtic Utopia," and Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi's "Shadowbox."

Bina Paul, the festival's director of programming, stated that the curation process focuses on distinctive voices and boundary-pushing filmmaking. She noted that this approach helps build a program diverse in geography, form, and subject while maintaining a commitment to independent cinema. The festival's Himalayan Film Fellows initiative, supported by Arthshila, is working with seven filmmakers from the Indian Himalayan Region on their first or second fiction features. Mentors for the initiative include Dechen Roder, Umesh Kulkarni, and Dominic Sangma.

In partnership with the Royal Enfield Social Mission, the festival is completing 24 community screenings around Kangra this year. These screenings take place at venues including schools, nunneries, and the district jail. Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, who launched the festival in 2012, said the event aims to create a communal space for independent films where filmmakers and audiences can interact beyond the screening room.