Kirti Kulhari’s Production Debut ‘Kinaare’ to Premiere at Dharamshala, Rima Das’ ‘Not a Hero’ to Open Festival

Kirti Kulhari’s first feature as a producer, “Kinaare” (“Shores”), will premiere at the 15th Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), which will open with Rima Das’ Berlin-awarded “Not a Hero.”

The festival will run Oct. 29–Nov. 1 at the Tibetan Children’s Village in Upper Dharamshala, with an online edition to follow Nov. 2–9.

Written and directed by brothers Akbar Quadri and Azam Quadri, “Kinaare” stars Kulhari as Amina, a single woman in a village near Delhi who spends her days looking after her elderly parents and the family home. Her cousin, played by Azam Quadri, turns up without warning after 15 years away, and his visit brings back the events that once split the family. By the time he leaves, Amina has made her peace with the past. Rajeev Siddhartha, Alka Amin and Ravi Taneja complete the cast.

Kulhari produced the film through her banner Kintsukuroi Films, with Abhishek Koka and Maansi Guptey as co-producers.

“It’s a script that really resonated with me. It’s a simple, heartwarming, and subtle film. I find all these adjectives in Iranian films – which I’ve always really loved – so when something like this came to me, I knew I had to make it,” Kulhari said. “This is exactly how I wanted to make this film: independently, make it the way I see it, the way we all see it collectively.”

Siddhartha said every actor hopes for a script that values the written word and also pushes them to explore the spaces between the words. “And with ‘Kinaare,’ I got to do that as an actor. I feel ‘Kinaare’ has such a universal theme that everybody who sees it will definitely be touched, be moved and be slightly changed from within after the experience,” he said.

The film’s crew includes cinematographer Arjun Sundaram, composer Mohan Kannan, editor Bakul Matiyani and sound designer Sanjay Chaturvedi.

“Not a Hero,” an India-Singapore co-production, will have its South Asia premiere as the festival’s opening night film. It debuted at the Berlinale earlier this year, where it took a Crystal Bear Special Mention in the Generation Kplus strand, and later won best indie film at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. It has also played Zlín, Zurich and Busan.

The film centers on a boy packed off from the city to his family’s ancestral village. There he meets a distant aunt, makes friends with a horse and falls in with a pack of local children, finding both a life away from screens and a courage he did not know he had.

Das is known for “Village Rockstars,” “Bulbul Can Sing,” “Tora’s Husband” and “Village Rockstars 2.” Her films have screened at more than 150 festivals and collected over 75 awards.

The latest additions to the DIFF lineup also include Don Palathara’s “The Uncertainty Principle,” set among young people in Kochi chasing careers in cinema, and “Cool Ladies Club,” a documentary co-directed by Shilpi Gulati and 10 women from Mumbai’s eastern suburbs who made the film together over 18 months.

Also on the slate are Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi’s Kolkata-set Berlin-debuting family drama “Shadowbox,” Rafael Kapelinski’s Poland-Hungary title “Budapest Diaries” and Eimi Imanishi’s Western Sahara-set “Nomad Shadow.”

They join titles from the festival’s initial lineup, among them Gurvinder Singh’s Locarno title, India-France co-production “Rehmat,” which weaves together three stories set in present-day Punjab; “Termite,” a short set in 1990s Old Delhi that marks the first fiction film from Oscar-nominated documentarian Shaunak Sen; and Oliver Laxe’s Cannes-winning “Sirāt.”

The first wave also includes Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s Cannes-debuting Thai family pilgrimage drama “9 Temples to Heaven,” Sara Dosa’s Iceland-set “Time and Water,” R. Gowtham’s Berlin-bowing grief drama “Members of the Problematic Family” and Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén’s Irish folk music documentary “Celtic Utopia.” Samreen Farooqui and Shabani Hassanwalia’s documentary “The Ordinary Star” follows Nawazuddin Siddiqui as he studies the real-life occupant of the room he would use while shooting “Star,” Dibakar Banerjee’s segment in the 2013 anthology “Bombay Talkies.”

DIFF was founded by filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam. This year’s edition will also run its fellowship program, with seven fellows mentored by Bhutanese director Dechen Roder and Indian independent filmmakers Umesh Kulkarni and Dominic Sangma.