Screening Dates
  • June 10, 2022 6:30
  • June 12, 2022 6:30
  • June 20, 2022 8:30
New Cinema

“Stirring … A resonant, haunting story … Randhawa’s powerful portrayal of the shepherdess [is] a role that could launch a career.”

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter

A young Kashmiri bride yearns for freedom in Indian writer-director Pushpendra Singh’s captivating and gorgeously crafted new film, set against the ongoing territory disputes in the Indian-administered Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan. Based on a Rajasthani folktale, as well as the life and poetry of fourteenth-century Kashmiri mystic Lalleshwari, this feminist fable concerns a beautiful shepherdess (Navjot Randhawa, transfixing) who marries into a tribe of migrant Bakarwal herders. When her radiance attracts the unwelcome attention of a lecherous forest ranger—already a scourge on the area’s nomadic peoples—she commences a vengeful scheme to lure the officer into conflict with her meek husband. Told over seven ​“songs,” each replete with traditional folk music, folkloric repetition in story, and arresting natural vistas (captured by gifted DP Ranabir Das), Singh’s fourth feature is a spellbinding allegory of politics and persecution in the embattled region. In Haryanvi and Hindi with English subtitles.

“The best film of 2020 … A masterpiece that links the political with the poetic, the lyrical with the corporeal.”

Jeva Lange, The Week

“Folklore, feminism, and film noir come together in Pushpendra Singh’s meticulously crafted fourth feature … An Indian arthouse drama of distinction.”

Richard Kuipers, Variety

“A beguiling romantic narrative … The parallels to the Indian state’s excesses are evident, but Singh doesn’t belabour the point, revelling in the rich cultural specificities of the setting.”

Devika Girish, Film Comment
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