The 46th edition of North America’s largest film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, will include three debut films by Indian directors, two fiction, and one documentary. Two of the films chosen for the 10-day festival, which kicks off on September 9, are debuts, and both will be shown in the Discovery section, a showcase for new talent.
Mumbai-based Hindi film Dug Dug, directed by Ritwik Pareek, will make its global debut at TIFF. It’s a satire film about odd happenings involving a motorcycle that causes a religious frenzy. TIFF curator Peter Kuplowsky called the film a “slick parody of religious commercialism and unrestrained devotion,” adding that Pareek’s debut “abounds with sarcastic humour and formal innovation, radiating an irresistible fervour that mesmerises as it raises the greatest of questions.”
The film “astutely examines the infectious force of faith and its metaphysical – and often transactional -mysteries,” according to Kuplowsky, and was inspired by the esoteric temples that Jaipur-born Pareek visited with his grandmother in the remotest regions of Rajasthan.
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Nithin Lukose’s Paka has a similarly unusual topic; River of Blood. TIFF co-head Cameron Bailey described this Malayalam film as a “Romeo and Juliet-esque retribution drama set deep in the Kerala jungles, where the river is witness to a terrible, generations-old rivalry.” He then went on to describe it as a “riveting modern folktale.”
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Payal Kapadia‘s debut feature-length documentary, A Night of Knowing Nothing, in Hindi and Bengali, will be the third Indian film to screen at TIFF. TIFF programmer Andrea Picard described it as “a fever dream of unattainable love connected to a wider commentary on modern India,” calling it one of the year’s “most thrilling debuts.” Picard raved that the film “announces the birth of a daring cinematic genius.” The documentary has already earned worldwide recognition, including Best Documentary at Cannes.
