Walia's 'Birds in the Dark' to Close Dharamshala Film Festival

Shashank Walia’s debut feature, Birds in the Dark, will close the 15th Dharamshala International Film Festival with its India premiere. The film centers on a call center executive whom a police informer mistakes for a suspect. It won two prizes at the Busan International Film Festival earlier in October.

The event runs from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 at the Tibetan Children’s Village in Upper Dharamshala. Organizers added several new titles to the lineup recently. Mehrdad Oskouei’s A Fox Under a Pink Moon, made with Afghan artist Soraya Akhlaghi, tracks her attempt to reach her mother in Austria. Paromita Vohra’s Working Girls focuses on the unseen labor performed by women across India.

Yashasvi Juyal’s The Ink Stained Hand and The Missing Thumb will have its South Asia premiere. The story takes place at a remote highway toll booth in northern India, where grief disrupts routine. Ridham Janve’s Hunter’s Moon is set in the Upper Dhauladhar range.

The shorts section includes the world premiere of Aastha Tiku’s Dreamboat. It also features Arun Fulara’s Hudke ki Pyaang Pyaang and Varun Grover’s Damned. Bina Paul, the festival’s director of programming, stated that curation remains central to the event. "While curating, we look for distinctive voices, boundary-pushing filmmaking and films that open up new ways of seeing and thinking," Paul said.

Rima Das’s Not a Hero opens the festival with its South Asia premiere. Other confirmed titles include Óliver Laxe’s Sirāt, Shaunak Sen’s Termite, Gurvinder Singh’s Rehmat, Sara Dosa’s Time and Water, Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén’s Celtic Utopia, and Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi’s Shadowbox. Termite will have its Asia premiere, while Rehmat will have its India premiere.

The Himalayan Film Fellows initiative, supported by Arthshila, is assisting seven filmmakers from the Indian Himalayan Region with their first or second fiction features. Dechen Roder, Umesh Kulkarni, and Dominic Sangma serve as mentors. In partnership with Royal Enfield Social Mission, the festival is completing 24 community screenings around Kangra. These screenings take place in schools, nunneries, and the district jail.

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam launched the festival in 2012. They aimed to create a communal space in Dharamshala for independent films, allowing filmmakers and audiences to interact beyond the screening room. "Fifteen years later, that spirit remains at the heart of the festival," the founders said.