Stories
Punjabi Film 'Birds in the Dark' Wins Audience Award at Busan
N
News18•14-10-2026, 19:15
Punjabi Film 'Birds in the Dark' Wins Audience Award at Busan
- •The rural Punjabi drama Birds in the Dark, directed by Shashank Walia, won the Songwon Vision Audience Award at the 2026 Busan International Film Festival.
- •Backed by filmmaker Hansal Mehta, the movie had its world premiere in the Vision category and was one of only two Indian films selected among 24 movies.
- •The award is determined by audience votes in the Vision section and includes a cash prize of KRW 10,000,000.
- •Titled Hanere de Panchhi in Punjabi, the black-and-white film explores themes of sexuality, patriarchy, farmers resistance, and caste hierarchy.
Key Questions Answered
The Punjabi film Birds in the Dark won the Songwon Vision Audience Award at the 2026 Busan International Film Festival, which includes a cash prize of KRW 10,000,000.
The film was directed by Shashank Walia and backed by filmmaker Hansal Mehta as a co-producer through his banner True Story Films, alongside Reema Kaur and Sahil Saigal.
Shot in black and white, the film explores themes of sexuality, patriarchy, farmers' resistance, and the caste hierarchy. Its plot follows a disillusioned police informer named Jagtar who frees a wrongly detained Kashmiri Muslim man and returns to his village, where his former lover reconnects with him while a childhood friend leads a struggle for landless workers' rights.
