Last year, independent film editor-turned-director Tanushree Das felt rewarded when, after watching her directorial debut, Baksho Bondi (Shadowbox), at Berlinale, people turned emotional. Some were reminded of their childhood in East Berlin, while others recalled their mothers’ invisible labour. A soldier spoke about how psychologically stifling it was not to be able to speak to their family about all they have done. Baksho Bondi is about the quiet resilience of a middle-class woman in Barrackpore, running the household and dealing with a husband who’s a former soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Tanushree Das, indie editor and director, Berlinale Talent 2026.
Das co-directed theiridescent Bengali film, starring Tillotama Shome, along with her cinematographer-partner Saumyananda Sahi (All That Breathes, Eeb Allay Ooo!, Nasir, Trial by Fire, and Black Warrant). Sahi was part of the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2005 at 17, making him the youngest Indian talent to be selected for the programme. Das, as an editor, was selected in the past but could never afford to make the European trip. This year, she is one of six Indians among the 200 selected from 3,500 applicants globally. Berlinale Talents will take place from February 13 to 18 at a new address: Radialsystem. “When your film is in one of the top five festivals, others do take notice. They look at it differently,” says Das, for whom this will be a “first-of-its-kind summit”, barring India’s NFDC Film Bazaar as an editor with work-in-progress (WIP) projects like Eeb Allay Ooo! and Aise Hee.
Building a film community
Berlinale Talents has more than 10,000 alumni worldwide, one of the world’s largest and most connected film networks. This year, the Talents Lab will host 20 alumni projects spanning fiction, documentary, animation, and experimental forms, creating a collaborative space to refine creative visions and accelerate production. The Talent Project Market will also spotlight alumni, presenting 10 projects seeking production partners within the Berlinale Co-Production Market, which is for projects with a minimum budget of €1 million. “When Berlinale has invited me back, they are bringing me into their community. So, next time, I can pitch at the alumni forums. It’s a thriving space where engagement is happening at many angles,” Das says.
Nihaarika Negi, indie filmmaker, Berlinale Talent 2021, is pitching her film at the European Film Market (EFM), the Berlin Co-Production Market, this year.
Speaking of building a community, composer-turned-producer Naren Chandavarkar’s Moonweave Films (Baksho Bondi; 2025 Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize Dramatic winner Sabar Bonda [Cactus Pears]) is co-producing Nihaarika Negi’s Feral.
Feral is in this year’s European Film Market (EFM) and the Berlin Co-Production Market. Multidisciplinary artist, theatre actor and experimental filmmaker Negi wrote Pushan Kripalani’s film The Threshold (2015), starring Neena Gupta and Rajit Kapoor. Her Feral is an Indian genre film with strong international potential. Set in 1950s India, the movie is about two part-tribal maidservants, and it is an elevated horror doused with black humour about colonial trauma. Negi hopes to find potential sales/distribution partners at the market. Negi was a Berlinale Talent in 2021. “The camaraderie that we shared and the active networks we continue to have are special,” she says.
Subarna Dash, indie filmmaker, Berlinale Talent 2026.
Yet another returnee is Subarna Dash, 31, the only Indian filmmaking Talent who is not from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. The Kolkata-based Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI) graduate is an animation filmmaker whose work explores themes of the body, identity, and isolation, often with a touch of wit and humour. Her graduation film, The Girl Who Lived in the Loo, premiered at Berlinale 2024. “I’m excited to return to Berlinale Talents with my debut mixed-media feature, In Heat, On Loop. I’m really looking forward to script mentorship, developing the project further, and connecting with fellow Talents, hopefully leading to future collaborations,” she says.
Anadi Athaley, indie editor and producer, Berlinale Talent 2026.
Mumbai-based Anadi Athaley, 38, film editor and producer for 11 years (Borderlands, The Unreserved, Sabar Bonda, Ralang Road, Holy Curse, Daaravtha), is looking forward to the masterclasses, discussions, and “sessions focused on editing, and to understanding the challenges my peers are navigating in an increasingly unstable world.”
In Berlin, Delhi’s Kislay, 37, who’s currently writing his next screenplay, A Death Foretold, expects “to discuss the creative and institutional challenges facing independent cinema. To introspect about the world today, saturated with visuals, mass media, and violence.”
“And how can cinema stand up as a critical medium reflecting on the current times. With the coming of social media, reality itself has turned into narratives, with powerful institutions competing with each other to propagate their version of reality,” he says.
Kislay, indie filmmaker, Berlinale Talent 2026.
The Delhi University and FTII graduate Kislay was, along with Prateek Vats (Eeb Allay Ooo!) and Cannes Grand Prix-winning Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine As Light), booked in the charge sheet for protesting against the appointment of BJP member and TV actor Gajendra Chauhan as the FTII chairman in 2015.
“As a society, we really need to worry that the element of critical engagement with culture has gone missing,” he says. Kislay adds further that many young filmmakers are making their debut films very quickly these days, despite “a lack of distribution system and a dedicated audience which engages with independent cinema. It’s a chicken and egg problem, lack of infrastructure for the art, which is not commercially driven, ends up not creating the audience which might want to engage with such art.”
Thematic shift
The Talents theme for this year is “Creating (and) Confusion — Cinema, Chaos and the Power of Discomfort”. “It is a subtle acknowledgement that cinema can’t be over-planned, that pathbreaking cinema was never designed as such, and that chaos is embraced wholeheartedly as a necessary condition of creation. The Steve Jobs clip doing the rounds about pre-vis and storyboarding applies only to animated films and big films,” quips indie producer Thanikachalam S.A., of Barycenter Films, which co-produced Maisam Ali’s In Retreat (Cannes) and Nishant Kalidindi’s Theatre (IFFR Rotterdam).
Thanikachalam S.A., indie producer, Berlinale Talent 2026.
Dash says, “My current project/film follows the journey of a character who’s stuck, confused, and lost, learning to sit with unfamiliarity and discomfort rather than rushing towards resolution.” Athaley’s work often engages with confusion and sometimes deliberately sits within it. These confusions range from personal spaces such as “identity, sexuality, and morality to larger geopolitical uncertainties that shape our present moment. I believe that asking difficult questions and allowing ourselves to sit with discomfort is often the only way to move forward, and cinema is a powerful medium to do that,” he says.
Not giving up
For Athaley, this was his seventh application, and fifth for Devraj Bhowmik. For Thanikachalam, it’s taken 21 years to reach here. “I was selected to participate in the India edition of the Berlinale Talents in 2005, organised in partnership with the Osian Cinefan Film Festival in Delhi. I thought I’d probably make it to the main one in Berlin next year.” One fellow participant was Rahi Anil Barwe, who’s now a Bollywood writer (Tumbbad). “The Berlinale Talents has grown exponentially in these 21 years,” says Thanikachalam, “The size of the films I have produced is perfect for the Talent Project Market.”
Devraj Bhoumik, sound designer, Berlinale Talent 2026.
Kanpur-bred Bhowmik, who wanted to become a big Bollywood composer — worked on Aashram and Bhediya — now lives in Ireland, trying to find his footing in the Irish film industry. “FTII laid the foundation for my curiosity about sound in cinema,” says Bhowmik, who’s also collaborated with indie filmmakers, including Arya Rothe, the Indian editor on Kristina Mikhailova’s River Dreams (in Forum Special section), which was the first Kazakh documentary film ever to premiere in the history of Berlinale.
Bhowmik hopes the programme will give him visibility and a chance to collaborate on meaningful projects. “More importantly, I want to use this platform to amplify my voice as a sound designer. Sound has immense, untapped power. It can shape stories in the most beautiful ways if it’s included right from the scripting stage. Let’s start by calling ourselves sound directors,” he says.
About the “loudness” of mainstream Indian cinema at present, Bhowmik says, “this loudness reflects our surroundings, how people now freely express radical, intolerant opinions. But not everything loud is impactful.” Athaley adds, “The Indian film industry as a whole is going through a difficult phase, and independent cinema tends to feel its impact most sharply.”
Also in this year’s line-up is a young programmer-curator Vedant.
tanushree.ghosh@thehindu.co.in
