1 week ago
Birds in the Dark and Selvi Selected for Busan
Two Indian films will be shown for the first time at the Busan International Film Festival.
They are called Birds in the Dark and Selvi.
The festival will begin on October 6, 2026.
Both films will be shown in a section called Vision – Asia.
Birds in the Dark is set in Punjab and follows a police agent and an accused man.
Selvi follows a home-care worker during an ordinary day.
Its story was inspired by migrant nurses who cared for a seriously ill woman.
The filmmakers want to show the difficult and important lives of people who care for others.
Shashank Walia’s Birds in the Dark and Sailesh Rathnakumar’s Selvi will premiere at the 2026 Busan International Film Festival.
Both Indian films will screen in the Vision – Asia section of the festival’s 31st edition, beginning October 6.
Birds in the Dark follows a disillusioned police agent and an accused man amid a rising farm revolution in Punjab.
Selvi stars National Award-winning actress Anjali Patil, who is also producing the film.
Selvi examines home-care workers and themes of care, migration, friendship, guilt, exhaustion and determination.
- Who
- Filmmakers Shashank Walia and Sailesh Rathnakumar, along with actor-producer Anjali Patil, are associated with the selected films.
- What
- Birds in the Dark and Selvi will premiere at the Busan International Film Festival.
- Where
- The films will screen in the Vision – Asia section of the Busan International Film Festival in Busan.
- When
- The festival’s 31st edition begins October 6, 2026; the PTI report is dated August 24.
- Why
- The films were selected for the festival; Selvi specifically portrays home-care workers and their experiences of care, migration and determination.
Key facts
- Selected films
- Birds in the Dark and Selvi
- Festival
- Busan International Film Festival
- Festival edition
- 31st edition
- Festival section
- Vision – Asia
- Festival start
- October 6, 2026
- Birds in the Dark
- Directed by Shashank Walia and set in Punjab
- Selvi
- Written and directed by Sailesh Rathnakumar; produced by Anjali Patil
- Selvi inspiration
- Observations of migrant home-care nurses who attended to Bargav Sridhar’s mother during critical illness
Quotes
Sailesh Rathnakumar
Tamil writer-director and co-writer of Selvi
“It is a personal, intimate observation of the ordinary people in healthcare who spend their lives caring for others, even as their own lives quietly wither. Premiering at Busan is a milestone we're incredibly proud of. We would be bringing Selvi back home, to the people to whom it truly belongs,”
livemint.com
“'Selvi' is about a woman moving through an ordinary day. I wanted the film to move with her, to stay close to her life without explaining it or asking it to mean more than it already does,”
telegraphindia.com
livemint.com
Sources
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