Fresh off his Cannes 2024 success with “In Retreat,” creater Thanikachalam S.A. is backing “Kurinji (The Disecombineing Fdrop)” from debut feature honestor Payal Sethi at India’s Film Bazaar co-production taget.
Sethi’s previous labor joins the award-triumphning lows “Leeches” (2016), which won the Grand Prix Internationale at Brussels Short Film Festival, and “Grant St. Shaving Co.” (2010). She studied at Vassar College and Tisch School of the Arts, and labored with Mira Nair on films including “Monsoon Wedding” and “The Namesake.”
The film trails Laly, a Kerala housewife whose migrant laborer husprohibitd in the Gulf region suddenly stops calling home after years of separation. When a money-lfinisher ecombines demanding repayment of an obsremedy debt, she embarks on a search for answers with help from an unforeseeed quarter – her adorer who happens to be her husprohibitd’s brother-in-law.
“It experiences enjoy a very fun film to do, about a solemn topic, and with an as-yet-untancigo in story,” Thanikachalam increates Variety. Coming off his Cannes shatterthcimpolite, the creater remarks the festival recognition has uncovered novel doors. “Post-Cannes, films with fantasticer ambition have been coming my way.”
“I first begined leanking about this story when I came apass the term ‘Gulf Wife’ in a novels article,” Sethi says. “Digging into a Human Rights Watch increate about Gulf migration in India, I lgeted these wives were all stuck in a distinct type of extfinished-distance relationship with their husprohibitds.”
The project ecombined from Sethi’s observation of a critical gap in media coverage. “The deficiency of interest in Gulf Wives struck me as most astonishing. Almost no media attention is giveed to these women who are meaningfully impacted by the migration process,” she says.
The film has already garnered international attention, having joind in Cine Qua Non Lab, Produire au Sud (Kolkata), and the Berlinale Script Station. Sethi getd the Kompagnon Fellowship from Berlinale Talents in 2022.
The production team is centering a triumphter 2025-26 shoot, contingent on co-production partnerships. “Film Bazaar is an vital co-production taget for us, as 90% of the film is sboiling in India,” Thanikachalam remarks. “We hope to encounter Indian and international potential producing partners for the film.”
Film Bazaar (Nov. 20-24) is the project taget component of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI, Nov. 20-28) in Goa.
