Two more Indian independent features have joined the 31st Busan International Film Festival, expanding the country’s presence in the festival’s A Window on Asian Cinema section.
Malayalam filmmaker Leo Thaddeus’s Chevittorma (The Soul Whisperer) will have its world premiere at Busan. The 93-minute independent feature stars Dileesh Pothan and Pauly Valsan and is written and directed by Thaddeus. The film centres on Varkichan, a man existing between life and death, and explores memory, faith and the possibility of redemption.
The film has also had a development journey through India’s festival infrastructure: it was presented at the NFDC Co-Production Market, Cannes Co-Production Day and the NFDC Work-in-Progress Lab before reaching Busan.
The second addition is About an Intimate Matter (Ekanta Byaktigata Bishoy), the Bengali-language feature debut of Sandeep Kumar Paul. Starring Sreya Bhattacharya, the film follows Swarna, a schoolteacher whose private life becomes public, forcing her to confront voyeurism, moral policing and workplace pressure. It too will have its world premiere in A Window on Asian Cinema.
Paul, a data scientist who has no formal film-school training, shot the film two years ago. The supporting cast includes Sanjita, Shimlli Basu, Sudipa Basu, Sandip Bhattacharyya, Chaiti Ghoshal and Ashoke Viswanathan, with Tajdar Junaid composing the music and Prateek Pamecha serving as cinematographer.
The two additions take India’s representation in A Window on Asian Cinema to six features: Rima Das’s Not A Hero, Anuparna Roy’s Lovers in the Blue Night, Chevittorma, Vishwendra Singh’s Khoriya, Sahil H. Shah’s Birds on Ice and About an Intimate Matter.
India has additional representation elsewhere in the 2026 programme. Sailesh Rathnakumar’s Selvi and Shashank Walia’s Birds in the Dark are in Vision–Asia, while Paromita Dhar’s Salt Electric is in the Asian Short Film Competition. The official Busan programme confirms Selvi and Birds in the Dark as part of its 11-film Vision–Asia selection.
The 31st Busan International Film Festival runs October 6–15, 2026, at the Busan Cinema Center and other venues in Busan.
